Introduction

Upper Miocene localities in France are relatively numerous, but not equally distributed through time. Only three localities are allocated to the Lower Vallesian. There are abundant local faunas from the Upper Vallesian and Lower Turolian, but the Middle and Upper Turolian are poorly represented.

The fossiliferous sites occur in different areas (Fig. 8.1 and Table 8.1).

Near Lyon, in the Rhône Valley (Ain County code number 01), the oldest fossiliferous locality Jujurieux (Mein, 1985), along the banks of the Ecotay river, is embedded in Serravallian marine sands, with Foraminifera, and occurs immediately above the last marine stratum. A preliminary list was given by Mein (1985). This fauna which is more recent than La Grive L3, is characterised by new species for the Rhône Valley such as a new form of Democricetodon and a small species of Megacricetodon; the large form of Megacricetodon has disappeared. In spite of the absence of typical Vallesian elements, the strata of Jujurieux may be equivalent to the marine sands at Saint Fons (in the south suburb of Lyon) which has yielded a Hipparion mandible. An updated faunal list is given in the appendix. The locality Priay 2 (Welcomme et al., 1991) also lies just above marine sediments, at the basis of the ‘Marnes de Bresse’ Formation and has been referred to the Lower Vallesian. The locality of Douvre (Mein, 1984) is slightly younger. The sites of Amberieu 1, 2 and 3 belong to three different levels in the same formation (Farjanel & Mein, 1984). In the same area, Soblay is a doline deposit which has yielded large mammals (Viret & Mazenot, 1948) and small mammals (Mein, 1970, 1984).