In the site of Fonelas, in the Guadix-Baza basin, there have appeared fossils of big mammals completely new in Europe. Such remains of organic origin have been found in the dry meander of a riverbed which was a feeding through for hyenas. “This kind of fossils can be usually found in places such as on the edge of lakes. However, in this case it seems like if hyenas had moved animal rets which died in the flooded sands to this abandoned channel”, says César Viseras Alarcón, Professor of the Department of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy of the University of Granada.
It would explain the wide variety of animal species preserved, a lot of them unknown for scientists. Apart from hyenas, river wild boars, giraffes, wolf ancestors and sabre-toothed felines used to live in the Andalusian savannah 1.8 million years ago. Viseras is the main author of the article Geological determinants for the genesis of a big mammal’s site: Fonelas P-1 (limite Plio-Pleistoceno, Guadix-Baza basin, Cordillera Bética), published this year in the Geological and Mining Bulletin. This work emphasizes that Fonelas presents very interesting conditions for the preservation of the geological environment.
In fact, the findings imply a modification on the keys of the transit from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene. According to the scientists’s data, the faunal dispersion of man ancestors from Africa to Eurasia would be more westerly than supposed. “In the site of Granada, there have nor appeared hominid remains but there are animal remains similar to those of the sites of Dmanisi (Georgia)”, points out Viseras. Here there were hominid remains dating from that prehistoric period, the oldest found in Europe.
The interpretation of the fossils, which has revealed the existence of this savannah located at the foot of Sierra Nevada, has been directed by Alfonso Arribas Herrera, of the Spanish Geological and Mining Institute. The experts do not dismiss, in the course of these works in Fonelas, which will be pursued in the next years, the finding of hominid remains which would be revolutionary.
Reference: Prof. César Viseras Alarcón. Dpt. Stratigraphy and Palaeontology. Phone numbers. 958 243346 – 958 243203. E-mail. viseras@ugr.es.
