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First fossil evidence of an “interglacial refugium” in the Pyrenean region

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Abstract

A refugium is generally understood as an area where temperate species survive cold periods, such as the Iberian, Italian, or Balkan Peninsulas in Europe. Strictly speaking, this definition refers to what is known as a glacial refugium. However, there are various types of lesser-known refugia such as the interglacial refugium, which denotes a mountainous region at low latitudes, such as the Pyrenees, where species adapted to the cold survive during interstadial periods. The small-vertebrate association from the sequence of Cova Colomera, which is located on the southern face of the Pyrenees and contains the final cold spell of the Late Pleistocene and the beginnings of the temperate period in which we currently find ourselves (the Holocene), could constitute the first fossil evidence of such an interglacial refugium, thus providing new paleoecological data on the phenomenon.

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Acknowledgements

The archeological work undertaken at Cova Colomera forms part of the project Poblament i paleoambient a la Serra del Montsec, des del Plistocè superior fins l'edat del Bronze, directed by F. Xavier Oms Arias and Mireia Pedro Pascual, integrated within the “consolidated” research group SERP (SGR2009-01145) of the Universitat de Barcelona, with its project “La ocupación humana y su interrelación con el medio en nordeste peninsular durante el Pleistoceno superior final e inicios del Holoceno” (“Human occupation and its interrelation with the environment in the northeast of the Peninsula during the Latest Pleistocene and beginning of the Holocene”) (HAR2008-00103 of the Ministry of Education and Innovation).

We thank the Department of Territory and Landscape of the Obra Social de la Caixa de Catalunya for its sponsorship and interest in our work, which also receives administrative and financial support from the Archaeology and Paleontology Branch of the Department of Culture and Media of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

We are also grateful to Prof. Sven Thatje and the four anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments that strongly improved the manuscript.

Furthermore, this work forms part of the projects PO BOS 2003-8938, DGI CGL 2006-13532-C03-01-02, 2002-02-4.1-U-048, HAR2009-07223/HIST, CGL2009-07896/BTE, SGR2009-324. J.M.L-G. has been supported by a postdoctoral grant from the Juan de la Cierva Subprogram (JCI-2009-04026), with the financial sponsorship of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (Unitat associada al CSIC), Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Plaça Imperial Tarraco 1, 43005, Tarragona, Spain

    Juan Manuel López-García, Hugues-Alexandre Blain, Ethel Allué, Sandra Bañuls, Amelia Bargalló, Patricia Martín, Juan Ignacio Morales, Anna Rodríguez & Alex Solé

  2. SERP, Seminari d’Estudis i Recerques Prehistòriques. Departament de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona, C/ Montalegre 6-8, 08001, Barcelona, Spain

    Mireia Pedro & F. Xavier Oms

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  1. Juan Manuel López-García
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Correspondence to Juan Manuel López-García.

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López-García, J.M., Blain, HA., Allué, E. et al. First fossil evidence of an “interglacial refugium” in the Pyrenean region. Naturwissenschaften 97, 753–761 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0695-6

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