Small mammals in the plio/pleistocene sediments of Greece

Abstract

Small mammals represent an important source of biostratigraphic and ecological information at Plio/Pleistocene localities. In this paper, we provide an overview of small mammals from Pliocene and Pleistocene sites in Greece, present fossil rodent and insectivore faunal assemblages and their chronology for select loci, and discuss the applicability of Paleomagnetism and Mammal Neogene (MN) zonation for Greek assemblages. Comparisons and contrasts between the faunas of various sites are attempted in order to trace paleoenvironmental and ecotone changes during each period. Small mammal faunas have been studied at only a few archaeological/anthropogenic Pleistocene sites in Greece, and therefore most of the sites mentioned here bear only paleontological information. Our overview, however, demonstrates that small mammals can be an excellent source of supplementary information for the interpretation of archaeological sites.