The carnivores (mammalia) from the Lower and Middle Pleistocene sites of Atapuerca (Spain).

The Sierra de Atapuerca contains several karstic deposits rich in carnivores: Trinchera Galeria, Trinchera Dolina, Trinchera Elefante and Sima de los Huesos. These remains do not belong to the same chronological period but to different moments of the Early and Middle Pleistocene. This complementary information provides a wider knowledge of the biostratigraphical carnivore sequence in Europe. Sima de los Huesos and Trichera Galeria, although with different causes of accumulation which display differences on taphonomical analyses, contain similar species of carnivores which are typical Middle Pleistocene post-Cromerian taxa. This same period seems to correspond to the upper levels of Trinchera Dolina (TD11, TD10 and TD8b) anyway as the excavation works have not concluded yet, the fossil material recovered up to now is somewhat scarce to establish a definite conclusion about the chronology and type of carnivore community of these levels. The lowermost levels of Trinchera Dolina (TD3/4, TD5,TD6 and TD8a) contain a different carnivore assemblage with typical late Early Pleistocene-Cromerian species. This radical substitution of taxa is placed in the TD8 layer probably due to a stratigraphical hiatus in this level or in TD7. Trinchera Elefante is in a preliminary phase of study: the carnivores taxa recovered as yet differ than those from the lowermost levels of Trinchera Dolina suggesting this to be the most primitive association of carnivores in the Sierra. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.