Page 1 - Palombo_Ferretti _2005

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Quaternary International 126–128 (2005) 107–136

Elephant fossil record from Italy:knowledge, problems,
and perspectives

a,
Maria R. Palombo *, Marco P. Ferretti b
a
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Universit" a degli Studi di Roma ‘‘La Sapienza’’ and CNR, Istituto di Geologia Ambientale e Geoingegneria,
Piazzale A. Moro 5, I-00185, Roma, Italy
b Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra and Museo di Storia Naturale (Sezione Geologia e Paleontologia), Universit" a degli Studi di Firenze,
via G. La Pira 4, I-50121, Firenze, Italy
Available online 26 June 2004

Abstract

The earliest occurrence of elephantines in Italy is in the middle Villafranchian (late Middle Pliocene; ca. 2.6 Ma), with a primitive
representative of the mammoth lineage. In addition to this still poorly known taxon, four elephant species are clearly recognized in
Plio-Pleistocene fossil mammal assemblages from the Italian peninsula: Mammuthus meridionalis, M. trogontherii, M. primigenius,
and Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus. In Sicily, at least three different taxa are present during the Pleistocene:the dwarf E. falconeri,
the medium sized E. (P.) ‘‘mnaidriensis’’, and a third poorly known large sized taxon, represented by isolated findings, in some cases
apparently associated with E. (P.) ‘‘mnaidriensis’’. A number of specimens from Spinagallo and Luparello, of intermediate size
between E.‘‘mnaidriensis’’ and E. falconeri, suggest the occurrence in Sicily of a further elephant species. Sardinia records the only
case of an endemic small sized Mammuthus species from the western Mediterranean. The Italian elephant fossil record clearly shows
the influence of climatic, physiographic and paleogeographic conditions on the pattern of occurrence and dispersal of this mammal
group in Southern Europe.
r 2004 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the faunal succession of other geographic areas. A
number of taxa, however, represents endemic species,
Elephant fossil remains have been recovered through- like the well-known small-sized elephants from Sicily
out the Italian territory, including Sardinia, Sicily, and and Sardinia that evolved from local Mediterranean
Capri, representing one of the most common finds in elephant populations. Because of its southern location
Pleistocene large mammal assemblages. The record of with respect to continental Europe, the Italian peninsula
fossil elephants in Italy spans from late Middle Pliocene acted as a refugium area during the Pleistocene for those
to latest Pleistocene times, and includes both one of the elephant taxa whose range retreated during phases of
earliest as well one of the latest appearances of elephants climatic worsening (see Stuart, 2004).
in Western Europe. Usually, the appearance of new We provide here an updated review of the Italian
elephant taxa in Italian Plio-Pleistocene assemblages fossil elephants, focusing on their systematics, biochro-
represents migration events from Eastern Europe or nology, and paleobiogeography. Our account is based
Asia that took place during phases of major climatic on revision of known elephant fossil collections from
changes. In this case the taxa involved have widespread various Italian localities, description of new findings,
Eurasian ranges, as for instance Elephas (Palaeolo- and on review of relevant information from recent
xodon) antiquus and Mammuthus primigenius. These literature. We limited our analysis, however, to those
dispersal events are of great importance in defining the findings that we considered most relevant to the scope of
local biochronological scale and allow correlation with the present paper, depending on completeness, strati-
graphic control, and geographical location.
Though there remain significant uncertainties as to
*Corresponding author.
the systematic position and affinities of some elephant
E-mail addresses: mariarita.palombo@uniroma1.it
(M.R. Palombo), mferrett@geo.unifi.it (M.P. Ferretti). samples from Italy, the results already at hand
1040-6182/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.018