The journal Quaternary highlights on its cover the study on the oldest evidence of glacial fauna documented in the Iberian Peninsula
The journal Quaternary features on its cover a study reporting the earliest evidence of glacial fauna documented on the Iberian Peninsula. The research was led by scientists from the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), and the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA).
A fossil tooth dated between 300,000 and 243,000 years ago, recovered from the Galería site in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), confirms that reindeer (Rangifer) inhabited the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during a glacial period much earlier than previously thought. It represents the southernmost and oldest record of this species known across Eurasia.
“The presence of reindeer in the same stratigraphic unit as human remains and evidence of anthropic activity at Galería highlights the flexibility of Pleistocene human groups to adapt to different climatic conditions, even extremely cold ones,” explains Dr. Isabel Cáceres, professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, researcher at IPHES-CERCA, and co-author of the study.
Bibliographic reference
Made, J. van der, I.A. Lazagabaster, P. García-Medrano & I. Cáceres (2025). Southernmost Eurasian record of reindeer (Rangifer) in MIS 8 at Galería (Atapuerca, Spain): evidence for progressive southern expansion of glacial fauna across climatic cycles. Quaternary. https://doi.org/10.3390/