Book contents
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Quaternary of the Levant
- Part I: The Evolution of Current Landscapes and Basins
- Part II: Palaeoclimates
- Part III: Archaeology of Human Evolution
- Part IV: Palaeoecology
- 38 Palaeolithic Vegetal Diet in the Southern Levant
- 39 Pollen as Palaeoclimate Indicators in the Levant
- 40 The Archaeozoological Record in a Changing Environment of the Late Middle to the Late Pleistocene
- 41 Biogeography and Palaeoecology of the Early Pleistocene Large Mammals in the Levant
- 42 The Kaleidoscope of Mammalian Faunas during the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene in the Southern Levant
- 43 Fish Exploitation during the Quaternary
- 44 The Exploitation of Aquatic Resources during the Quaternary
- 45 Fossil-Based Reconstructions of Ancient Water Bodies in the Levantine Deserts
- Part V: Quaternary Geomorphology
- Part VI: Humans in the Levant
- Index
- Plate section
- References
41 - Biogeography and Palaeoecology of the Early Pleistocene Large Mammals in the Levant
from Part IV: - Palaeoecology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2017
Book contents
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Quaternary of the Levant
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Quaternary of the Levant
- Part I: The Evolution of Current Landscapes and Basins
- Part II: Palaeoclimates
- Part III: Archaeology of Human Evolution
- Part IV: Palaeoecology
- 38 Palaeolithic Vegetal Diet in the Southern Levant
- 39 Pollen as Palaeoclimate Indicators in the Levant
- 40 The Archaeozoological Record in a Changing Environment of the Late Middle to the Late Pleistocene
- 41 Biogeography and Palaeoecology of the Early Pleistocene Large Mammals in the Levant
- 42 The Kaleidoscope of Mammalian Faunas during the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene in the Southern Levant
- 43 Fish Exploitation during the Quaternary
- 44 The Exploitation of Aquatic Resources during the Quaternary
- 45 Fossil-Based Reconstructions of Ancient Water Bodies in the Levantine Deserts
- Part V: Quaternary Geomorphology
- Part VI: Humans in the Levant
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
The chapter describes main patterns of large mammalian faunal evolution in the Early - Middle Pleistocene in the Southern Levant. This fauna suggests only a few Lower and Middle Pleistocene intervals in which climate conditions allowed for biographic dispersal from Africa to Eurasia. However, the identification of discrete dispersal events may be due to a small sample size and the Levant was a permanently open corridor. Thus, early Pleistocene conditions allowed fauna to move freely between sub Sahara Africa and the Levant; the movement of fauna (including humans) from that region was motivated by inter- intra-species competition rather than climatic conditions. From a climate perspective, the overall biome structure is of a Mediterranean biome surrounded in the south and east by a more arid region and temperate region farther north; they did not alter significantly over the past 2.5 million years. The large fauna largely track early Pleistocene climatic forcing and shifts in humid – dry oscillations in the region as well as depict the present-day north-south and west-east regional gradient in humidly.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Quaternary of the LevantEnvironments, Climate Change, and Humans, pp. 355 - 362Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017
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