Description: |
A palaeoartistic reconstruction that - regardless of the climatic phase - summarises the main taxa and vegetation types of the Early Pleistocene (1.6–1.2 Ma) inferred from palynological findings in VM1, BL, and FN3, Orce Archaeological Zone (OAZ). It includes altitudinal gradients culminating in conifers and birches above deciduous forest belts, areas with deeper soils in valleys dominated by woody angiosperms, and finally lacustrine and riparian environments at the bottom with meadows, sedge communities, and phreatophytes. The rhinoceros (bottom right) symbolises the importance of herbivory in the heliophytism of Pleistocene forests in the region (after Carrión & al., 2024-Greening a lost world: paleoartistic investigations of the early Pleistocene vegetation landscape in the first Europeans’ homeland. Quaternary Science Advances, 14 (2024) 100185 [fig 4, pag 6]. |