TY - JOUR
T1 - The early Middle Pleistocene archeopaleontological site of Wadi Sarrat (Tunisia) and the earliest record of Bos primigenius
AU - Martínez-Navarro, Bienvenido
AU - Karoui-Yaakoub, Narjess
AU - Oms, Oriol
AU - Amri, Lamjed
AU - López-García, Juan Manuel
AU - Zerai, Kamel
AU - Blain, Hugues Alexandre
AU - Mtimet, Moncef Saïd
AU - Espigares, María Patrocinio
AU - Ben Haj Ali, Nebiha
AU - Ros-Montoya, Sergio
AU - Boughdiri, Mabrouk
AU - Agustí, Jordi
AU - Khayati-Ammar, Hayet
AU - Maalaoui, Kamel
AU - El Khir, Maahmoudi Om
AU - Sala, Robert
AU - Othmani, Abdelhak
AU - Hawas, Ramla
AU - Gómez-Merino, Gala
AU - Solè, Àlex
AU - Carbonell, Eudald
AU - Palmqvist, Paul
PY - 2014/4/15
Y1 - 2014/4/15
N2 - Here we describe the new, rich lacustrine paleontological and archeological site of Wadi Sarrat (Le Kef, northeastern Tunisia), dated to the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, ~0.7 Ma, by a combination of paleomagnetism and biochronology. This locality preserves the earliest record of auroch, Bos primigenius, the ancestor of the worldwide extant domestic cattle species Bos taurus, which is represented by a nearly complete, giant-sized cranium (specimen OS1). Both the cranial anatomy and the size of this specimen reflect the phylogenetic legacy inherited from its ancestor, the late Early Pleistocene African Bos buiaensis, recorded in the eastern African paleoanthropological site of Buia, Eritrea (1.0Ma). Given that the latter species is an evolved form of the classical Early Pleistocene African buffalo Pelorovis oldowayensis, the finding of B.primigenius at Wadi Sarrat shows that the genus Bos evolved in Africa and dispersed into Eurasia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, which coincides with the spread of the Acheulian technocomplex in northern Africa and Europe. Therefore, the lineage of Pelorovis-Bos has been part of the human ecological landscape since the appearance of the genus Homo in the African Early Pleistocene. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
AB - Here we describe the new, rich lacustrine paleontological and archeological site of Wadi Sarrat (Le Kef, northeastern Tunisia), dated to the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, ~0.7 Ma, by a combination of paleomagnetism and biochronology. This locality preserves the earliest record of auroch, Bos primigenius, the ancestor of the worldwide extant domestic cattle species Bos taurus, which is represented by a nearly complete, giant-sized cranium (specimen OS1). Both the cranial anatomy and the size of this specimen reflect the phylogenetic legacy inherited from its ancestor, the late Early Pleistocene African Bos buiaensis, recorded in the eastern African paleoanthropological site of Buia, Eritrea (1.0Ma). Given that the latter species is an evolved form of the classical Early Pleistocene African buffalo Pelorovis oldowayensis, the finding of B.primigenius at Wadi Sarrat shows that the genus Bos evolved in Africa and dispersed into Eurasia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, which coincides with the spread of the Acheulian technocomplex in northern Africa and Europe. Therefore, the lineage of Pelorovis-Bos has been part of the human ecological landscape since the appearance of the genus Homo in the African Early Pleistocene. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
KW - Acheulian
KW - Africa
KW - Bos primigenius
KW - Early middle pleistocene
KW - Pelorovis
KW - Tunisia
U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.02.016
DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.02.016
M3 - Article
VL - 90
SP - 37
EP - 46
JO - Quaternary Science Reviews
JF - Quaternary Science Reviews
SN - 0277-3791
ER -