Miocene hominoid environments of Europe and Turkey
Abstract This study evaluates thirty-six fossils hominoid site complexes from Europe and Turkey. All belong to the middle Miocene. Based on sedimentary, faunal, floral, and foraminiferal evidence, several patterns emerge. Climatic conditions in middle Miocene Europe and Turkey were considerably warmer than during the Holocene. Nevertheless, a clear, though vacillating downward temperature trend is documented from late early Miocene times through the late Miocene. This was accompanied by increasing aridity and significant faunal/floral changes. Water was present at nearly every site. Thirty-two sites, or 89%, had some kind of water source directly at or near the site. This may have been a river/stream, lake, marsh, marine coastal setting, or some combination of these. Although all habitats were to some degree mosaics, differences in species/habitat associations are evident. Pliopithecines had strong positive associations with “swamp forest and forest/grassland mosaics” as the dominant vegetation type. By contrast, dryopithecines had strong associations with “fringing forest and open woodland” or “forest/grassland mosaics” while sivapithecines “were strongly correlated with sites where the dominant vegetation pattern was either a “forest/grassland mosaic” or “parkland and grassland”.