New palaeoecological approaches to interpret climatic fluctuations in Holocenic sites of the Pampean Region of Argentina

SARA GARCÍA-MORATO; YOLANDA FERNÁNDEZ JALVO; CLAUDIA MONTALVO; PETER ANDREWS; MARÍA DOLORES MARÍN-MONFORT; ANA FAGOAGA; ÁNGEL DOMÍNGUEZ GARCÍA; MARÍA T. ALBERDI; RICARDO BONINI; ESPERANZA CERDEÑO; CHRISTIANE DENYS; LAURA DOMINGO; MARÍA GUTIÉRREZ; JUAN LÓPEZ CANTALAPIEDRA; MARÍA DOLORES PESQUERO; JOSÉ LUIS PRADO; PALOMA SEVILLA; EMMANUELLE STOETZEL; RODRIGO L. TOMASSINI; FERNANDO J. FERNÁNDEZ

QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2021 vol. 255

0277-3791

The apparently regular and favourable climate that characterizes the Holocene as an interglacial periodshows, however, important climatic instability well documented in the Northern Hemisphere. Thesefluctuations from colder to warmer or wetter to drier affected both biodiversity and human societies inthe last 12,000 years, although the impact in Southern America is still poorly known. We are hereinvestigating the biodiversity of small mammal faunas, more sensitive to climatic changes than largemammals, combining taphonomic and palaeoecological data in the Argentine Pampas to better under-stand the global nature and effect of these Holocene climaticfluctuations. This paper is pioneeringapplying in this region palaeoecological methodologies practised in European sites, such as the choro-type classification and biomes overlap analyses. The Pampean Region is an ecotone with a confluence ofthree climatic regions where any change in climatic conditions should be easily detected. Our results,based on the palaeoecological requirements of small mammals, do not indicate severe changes, and mostof the sites show climatic stability except for one of them, in which a possible trend towards presentconditions (temperate/humid) can be inferred.