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Quaternary, Volume 8, Issue 3

2025 September - 19 articles

Cover Story: Successive ice ages prompted the progressively further southward expansion of the “Mammoth Steppe” ecosystem that supported species adapted to cold environments such as mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and reindeer. Previously, the oldest sites known with such cold-adapted species in the Iberian Peninsula dated back to Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS 6, ~191–123 ka). A recently discovered reindeer tooth from Atapuerca, dated to MIS 8 (~300–243 ka), represents not only the oldest evidence of glacial fauna in the Iberian Peninsula but also the southernmost occurrence of reindeer in Europe of this age. The presence of reindeer at this latitude (42º21' N) during MIS 8 suggests that glacial conditions affected the Iberian fauna earlier and with greater intensity than previously understood. View this paper
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Articles (19)

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
997 Views
16 Pages

Archaeozoological Insights into the Husbandry of Domestic Ruminants at Monastic and Noble Sites in Medieval Croatia

  • Kim Korpes,
  • Tajana Trbojević Vukičević,
  • Martina Đuras,
  • Magdalena Kolenc and
  • Aneta Piplica

22 September 2025

Animal husbandry played a central role in the economy of medieval Croatia, yet little comparative archaeozoological research was performed on noble and monastic sites. The aim of the present paper is to compare the proportions and use of cattle, shee...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
1,850 Views
14 Pages

Fossil Tusk Shells (Mollusca, Scaphopoda) in Archaeological Sites in the South of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain)

  • M. Carmen Lozano-Francisco,
  • M. Dolores Simón-Vallejo,
  • José A. Vera-Lozano,
  • José L. Vera-Peláez and
  • Miguel Cortés-Sánchez

15 September 2025

The interest of human groups in fossil collecting from the Middle Pleistocene onwards has recently been highlighted. Among the taxa identified at several archaeological sites, a particular group of molluscs stands out: the scaphopods. This paper prov...

  • Review
  • Open Access
1,447 Views
20 Pages

9 September 2025

This paper examines the exploitation of marine molluscs in the Western Isles of Scotland, from the Bronze Age to Norse periods (2500 BCE–1266 CE). Through analysis of shell assemblages from thirteen archaeological sites, we investigate changing...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
1,138 Views
13 Pages

1 September 2025

We report the first occurrence of an arboreal spiny rat of the tribe Echimyini in the Early Holocene of southern South America. The specimen, a lower deciduous premolar, was recovered from fluvial deposits exposed along the right bank of Doll Creek,...

  • Review
  • Open Access
1,281 Views
21 Pages

1 September 2025

Published cosmogenic 10Be exposure ages from the terminal moraine of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) in northeastern North America have been interpreted to date the start of the retreat of the LIS at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) about 25 thousand ye...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1,473 Views
23 Pages

Evidence of Chronic Tusk Trauma and Compensatory Scoliosis in Mammuthus meridionalis from Madonna della Strada (Scoppito, L’Aquila, Italy)

  • Leonardo Della Salda,
  • Amedeo Cuomo,
  • Franco Antonucci,
  • Silvano Agostini and
  • Maria Adelaide Rossi

7 August 2025

A remarkably well-preserved skeleton of a male Mammuthus meridionalis, approximately 60 years old, from the Early Pleistocene that is housed at the Castle of L’Aquila (Italy) exhibits a fractured left tusk with severe bone erosion of the alveol...

  • Review
  • Open Access
1,539 Views
17 Pages

Exploring Early Human Presence in West Central Africa’s Rainforests: Archeo-Paleontological Surveys, Taphonomy, and Insights from Living Primates in Equatorial Guinea

  • Antonio Rosas,
  • Antonio Garcia-Tabernero,
  • Darío Fidalgo,
  • Juan Ignacio Morales,
  • Palmira Saladié,
  • Maximiliano Fero Meñe and
  • Cayetano Ebana Ebana

5 August 2025

Since 2014, the Paleoanthropology Group of the National Museum of Natural Sciences (CSIC), in collaboration with Equatoguinean researchers, has been conducting archeo-paleontological fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea, continuing a longstanding Spanish n...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,208 Views
50 Pages

Insular Mid-Pleistocene Giant Rats from the So’a Basin (Flores, Indonesia)

  • Susan Hayes,
  • Gerrit D. van den Bergh,
  • Indra Sutisna,
  • Halmi Insani,
  • Unggul P. Wibowo,
  • Ruly Setiawan,
  • Iwan Kurniawan and
  • Samuel T. Turvey

4 August 2025

Excavations undertaken at Mata Menge, the securely dated Middle Pleistocene open site on the Indonesian island of Flores, have resulted in the recovery of over 670 well-preserved fossil murine molars from two distinct stratigraphic intervals. This re...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,385 Views
17 Pages

1 August 2025

During the Pleistocene, the successive ice ages prompted the southward expansion of the “Mammoth Steppe” ecosystem, a prevalent habitat that supported species adapted to cold environments such as the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and reinde...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1,594 Views
25 Pages

Exploring Continental and Submerged Paleolandscapes at the Pre-Neolithic Site of Ouriakos, Lemnos Island, Northeastern Aegean, Greece

  • Myrsini Gkouma,
  • Panagiotis Karkanas,
  • Olga Koukousioura,
  • George Syrides,
  • Areti Chalkioti,
  • Evangelos Tsakalos,
  • Maria Ntinou and
  • Nikos Efstratiou

1 August 2025

Recent archaeological discoveries across the Aegean, Cyprus, and western Anatolia have renewed interest in pre-Neolithic seafaring and early island colonization. However, the environmental contexts that support such early coastal occupations remain p...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1,025 Views
12 Pages

Holocene Climate Shifts Driving Black Soil Formation in NE China: Palynology and AMS14C Dating Insights

  • Hongwen Zhang,
  • Haiwei Song,
  • Xiangxi Lv,
  • Wenlong Pang,
  • Wenjun Pang,
  • Xin Li,
  • Yingxue Li and
  • Jiliang Shao

31 July 2025

In this study, 14 palynological samples and nine AMS 14C dating samples were collected from two representative black soil profiles in the Xingkai Lake Plain to examine climate changes and their impacts on environmental evolution since the Holocene. T...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1,571 Views
30 Pages

Microfossil (Diatoms, Tintinnids, and Testate Amoebae) Assemblages in the Holocene Sediments of the Laptev Sea Shelf off the Yana River as a Proxy for Paleoenvironments

  • Maria S. Obrezkova,
  • Lidiya N. Vasilenko,
  • Ira B. Tsoy,
  • Xuefa Shi,
  • Limin Hu,
  • Yaroslav V. Kuzmin,
  • Aleksandr N. Kolesnik,
  • Alexandr V. Alatortsev,
  • Anna A. Mariash and
  • Anatolii S. Astakhov
  • + 3 authors

30 July 2025

The paper presents the results of a microfossil study of Holocene sediments in the Yana River flow zone in the southeastern part of the Laptev Sea. A rich diatom flora (242 species and intraspecific taxa, of which 177 species are freshwater) was reve...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,057 Views
21 Pages

Obsidian Technology and Transport Along the Archipelago of Southernmost South America (42–56° S)

  • César Méndez,
  • Flavia Morello,
  • Omar Reyes,
  • Manuel San Román,
  • Amalia Nuevo-Delaunay and
  • Charles R. Stern

29 July 2025

Obsidian was a key toolstone for the development of maritime lifeways in the western archipelago of southernmost South America. This area is a fragmented landscape where the major north–south movement of people along the Pacific was only possib...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,443 Views
21 Pages

21 July 2025

Late Pleistocene coastal deposits on the southeastern coast of Formentera (Es Ram–Es Estufadors) provide a high-resolution record of sea-level and climatic fluctuations associated with Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5. Three distinct beach levels (...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
1,224 Views
18 Pages

Paleoecological Reconstruction Derived from an Age–Depth Model and Mollusc Data, Pécel, Hungary

  • László Makó,
  • Péter Cseh,
  • Balázs Nagy,
  • Pál Sümegi and
  • Dávid Molnár

The Pécel loess–paleosol profile is a 25.72-metre-high well-preserved sequence in the northern part of Hungary. It was sampled every 4 cm for the purpose of sedimentological analysis and every 12 cm for the purpose of mollusc investigati...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,160 Views
20 Pages

For the first time, the numerous scattered data on birds (wild and domestic) have been collected based on their medieval bone remains discovered on the modern territory of the Republic of Bulgaria. The collected information is about a total of 37 med...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
2,698 Views
27 Pages

The longstanding debate over early hominin subsistence strategies, particularly the hunting-versus-scavenging hypothesis, as well as discussions regarding the functionality of Oldowan sites, has been primarily centered on the archeological and paleoa...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,108 Views
19 Pages

Debates about prehistoric Amazonian subsistence, social organization, and landscape use have ranged from ethnographically based characterizations of relatively mobile foragers to archaeological evidence that suggests sedentary agriculturalists. Recen...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
1,869 Views
15 Pages

Modelling the Climate of the Eemian in Europe Using an Interactive Physical Downscaling

  • Frank Arthur,
  • Anhelina Zapolska,
  • Didier M. Roche,
  • Huan Li and
  • Hans Renssen

27 June 2025

The Eemian interglacial (~130–116 ka) is a period characterized by a significantly warmer climate than the pre-industrial era, providing a valuable opportunity to study natural climate variability and its implications for the future. We studied...

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Quaternary - ISSN 2571-550X