Juha Jaakko Saarinen

• University of Helsinki

Proboscideans were keystone Cenozoic megaherbivores and present a highly relevant case study to frame the timing and magnitude of recent megafauna extinctions against long-term macroevolutionary patterns. By surveying the entire proboscidean fossil history using model-based approaches, we show that the dramatic Miocene explosion of proboscidean fun...

Dental ecometric traits in large herbivores have been used to reconstruct palaeoenvi- ronments, given the known relationships that these traits have to modern environments (such as the negative correlation between hypsodonty and precipitation). These tech- niques have largely focused on environments in North America and particularly both Eurasia an...

Despite the benefits of the mesowear analysis method for dietary reconstruction, it has rarely been applied to notoungulates. We here apply traditional mesowear and a mesowear angle approach to an assemblage of the leontiniid Taubatherium paulacoutoi from the Late Oligocene (Deseadan SALMA), Tremembé Formation, Taubaté Basin, Brazil. Using both met...

Megadolodinae is a clade of tropical bunodont litopterns that includes three previously recognized species from Miocene fossil sites from northern South America. Here, we report an additional occurrence of Megadolodus molariformis from the Middle Miocene exposures at the Fitzcarrald arch (Peruvian Amazonia), based on dental material, which represen...

The fossil record provides direct evidence for the behavior of biological systems over millions of years. In doing so, paleontological information becomes a key source to study the evolution of ecosystems and how they responded to major environmental shifts. Using network analysis over a dataset of worldwide large herbivores spanning the past 60 My...

Our own species, Homo sapiens, has been able to invade near-all global ecosystems through a unique form of ecological plasticity. To understand how Homo sapiens have been able to disperse to such a wide range of environments , we need to understand the origins of the characteristic which enabled this, plasticity. Growing evidence indicates that Hom...

Meat consumption by early hominins is a hotly debated issue. A key question concerns their access to large mammal carcasses, including megafauna. Currently, the evidence of anthropic cut marks on proboscidean bones older than -or close to- 1.0 Ma are restricted to the archaeological sites of Dmanisi (Georgia), Olduvai (Tanzania), Gona (Ethiopia), O...

Despite its description at the end of the XIX Century, the alpha-taxonomy, paleobiogeography and biochronology of Equus major remains obscure and ill-defined, leaving a gap of knowledge in the evolutionary history of the Eurasian Palearctic Early Pleistocene Equus species. In this contribution, we describe the Early Pleistocene E. major samples fro...

Identification of the selective forces that shaped adaptive phenotypes generally relies on current habitat and function, but these may differ from the context in which adaptations arose. Moreover, the fixation of adaptive change in a fluctuating environment and the mechanisms of long-term trends are still poorly understood, as is the role of behavi...

The NOW database of fossil mammals came to be through a confluence of several initiatives spanning multiple decades. The first public version of NOW database was released in 1996 and the first Advisory Board was established the year after. Originally, NOW stood for Neogene of the Old World but with the gradual expansion of the database the acronym...

NOW ( New and Old Worlds ) is a global database of fossil mammal occurrences, currently containing around 68,000 locality-species entries. The database spans the last 66 million years, with its primary focus on the last 23 million years. Whereas the database contains records from all continents, the main focus and coverage of the database historica...

The NOW database of fossil mammals was released in 1996, slightly more than 25 years ago. Initially the acronym stood for ‘Neogene Old World’, but as the database later expanded to include data for Cenozoic mammals worldwide it was changed to ‘New and Old Worlds’. NOW is a comprehensive research database and its creation approximately coincided wit...

Body size is an overarching trait of taxa, related to virtually all aspects of their life history and their relationships with the environment. In this chapter, we use the NOW data to summarize body size evolution of terrestrial mammals during the Neogene. We first present a new method for estimating body size of Proboscidea and show consistent tre...

This volume presents an array of different case studies which take as primary material data sourced from the NOW (‘New and Old Worlds’) database of fossil mammals. The NOW database was one of the very first large paleobiological databases, and since 1996 it has been expanded from including mainly Neogene European land mammals to cover the entire Ce...

Equus suessebornensis is one of the most intriguing species of the Early and Middle Pleistocene Eurasian Equus. Although it was described from the Middle Pleistocene site of Süssenborn, in recent years its biochronological correlation has been extended to the Early Pleistocene, raising a debate in the scientific community. In this contribution, we...

Aim Body size evolution has long been hypothesized to have been driven by factors linked to climate change, but the specific mechanisms are difficult to disentangle due to the wide range of functional traits that covary with body size. In this study, we investigated the impact of regional habitat changes as a potential indirect effect of climate ch...

Simple Summary The family Equidae enjoys an iconic evolutionary record, especially the genus Equus which is actively investigated by both paleontologists and molecular biologists. Nevertheless, a comprehensive evolutionary framework for Equus across its geographic range, including North, Central and South America, Eurasia and Africa, is long overdu...

The Guadix-Baza Basin (GBB, Granada, Spain) extends over a surface area of some 4.500 km2 and constitutes one of the richest Pleistocene vertebrate fossil records in Western Europe. Within this basin, Orce area stands out for having yielded evidence on of the oldest hominin presence in western Eurasia. Exceptionally rich collections of stone tools...

Palynological investigations in the Orce Archaeological Zone (OAZ) (Guadix-Baza Basin, Granada, Spain), Venta Micena 1 (VM1), Barranco León (BL) and Fuente Nueva 3 (FN3) are presented. This archaeological region is connected with the first Homo populations in Western Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. The VM1 pollen record is characterized by Ep...

Little is known about the subsistence practices of the first European settlers, mainly due to the shortage of archaeological sites in Europe older than a million years. This article contributes to the knowledge of the subsistence of the first Europeans with new zooarchaeology and taphonomic data from the Palaeolithic site of Barranco León (Orce, Gr...

New mammal species have always been a source of major zoological intrigue, and whilst discoveries of large mammals are becoming less frequent, species like the saola and dingiso continue to enter the zoological literature. Modern communities are often assumed to be complete and are used for constructing community-level models. One example is ecomet...

Over the last few decades, several types of evidence such as presence of hominin remains, lithic assemblages, and bones with anthropogenic surface modifications have demonstrated that early human communities inhabited the European subcontinent prior to the Jaramillo Subchron (1.07–0.98 Ma). While most studies have focused primarily on early Europea...

Equus stenonis is one of the most iconic fossil species of the Early Pleistocene. Although it is known from the 19th century, its taxonomic and evolutionary position has been extensively debated among equid specialists, including multiple interpretations. The current work aims to review the European E. stenonis record, by morphological, morphometri...

Proboscideans were keystone Cenozoic megaherbivores and present a highly relevant case study to frame the timing and magnitude of recent megafauna extinctions against long-term macroevolutionary patterns. By surveying the entire proboscidean fossil history using model-based approaches, we show that the dramatic Miocene explosion of proboscidean fun...

The Guadix-Baza Basin (GBB) in Andalucía, Spain, comprises palaeontological and archaeological sites dating from the Early Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene, including some of the earliest sites with evidence for the presence of early humans (Homo sp.) in Europe. Thus, the history of climate and environments in this basin contributes significantly...

Nearly five decades ago Berggren and Van Couvering proposed an Old World “Hipparion Datum” wherein a North American Hipparion extended its range across Eurasia and Africa as an “instantaneous prochoresis” populating the Old World. Four decades ago Woodburne and Bernor examined European and North African hipparion assemblages and proposed a number o...

Venta Micena is an area containing several palaeontological sites marking the beginning of the Calabrian stage (Early Pleistocene). The richness of the fossil accumulation including species of Asian, African and European origin, makes Venta Micena a key site for the the palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental study of southern Europe during the Ea...

The monodactyl horses of the genus Equus originated in North America during the Pliocene, and from the beginning of the Pleistocene, they have been an essential part of the large ungulate communities of Europe, North America and Africa. Understanding how body size of Equus species evolved and varied in relation to changes in environments and diet t...

A key question in human evolution concerns the circumstances that led to the first dispersal of Homo across Eurasia. The so-called Savannahstan or savanna hypothesis argues that early Homo adaptation was relatively inflexible and that these hominins were closely tied to savanna and grassland environments. Consequently, hominins would have taken adv...

The Early Pleistocene sites of Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 (Guadix-Baza Basin, SE Spain) have yielded abundant Oldowan lithic artifacts and one hominin tooth (Homo sp. in level D1 or D2 of Barranco León), today considered to be among the earliest evidence for a hominin presence in Western Europe, at ca. 1.4–1.2 Ma. Here, for the first time, th...

The development of grassland ecosystems across most continents was a multistage process involving the appearance of open-habitat grasses in the Paleogene, the mid-late Cenozoic spread of C3 grass-dominated habitats, and, finally, the Late Neogene expansion of C4 grasses at tropical and subtropical latitudes. In addition, the timing of these evoluti...

En este trabajo se resumen los estudios llevados a cabo en los distintos yacimientos arqueopa-leontológicos de Orce durante las últimas décadas, haciendo especial hincapié en los resultados obtenidos a raíz de las últimas campañas de excavación (2017-2020), enmarcadas en el Proyecto General de Investigación «Primeras ocupaciones humanas y contexto...

Recent excavations at the Gračanica coal mine (Bugojno Basin, Bosnia-Herzegovina) have unearthed numerous skeletal parts of fossil vertebrates, including a noteworthy collection of mammalian remains. Previous palaeoecological investigations of the Dinarides Lake System were established using stratigraphical, palaeofloral, and malacological data. Ho...

Large herbivorous mammals have a long history of adaptation to changing environmental circumstances. Many groups of mammalian herbivores started as omnivores and opportunistic browsers of fruits and other plant parts, later adapting to increasingly specialised leaf browsing, and finally to grazing as open grass-dominated environments spread followi...

Teeth are the most informative remains in the fossil record due to their abundance and enamel structure, which is the hardest and most mineralised tissue, preserving well biochemical and mechanical features. Teeth occlusal wear signal (mesowear) and stable carbon isotope composition are reliable proxies for diet abrasiveness and habitat openness in...

Aim The links between geo‐ and biodiversity, postulated by Humboldt, can now be made quantitative. Species are adapted to their environments and interact with their environments by having pertinent functional traits. We aim to improve global ecometric models using functional traits for estimating palaeoclimate and apply models to Pleistocene fauna...

A new study by Fraser et al (2018) urges the use of phylogenetic comparative methods, whenever possible, in analyses of mammalian tooth wear. We are concerned about this for two reasons. First, this recommendation may mislead the research community into thinking that phylogenetic signal is an artifact of some sort rather than a fundamental outcome...

Background: The dental characteristics of large plant-eating mammals, such as hypsodonty, quite accurately describe present and past climatic conditions worldwide. However, several peculiar regions give systematically higher predictions of primary productivity than the local average environmental conditions should support. We call these 'anomalies'...

Xenarthrans comprised an ecologically significant and diverse group of small to gigantic sized terrestrial insectivorous, omnivorous and herbivorous mammals during the Cenozoic in South America and during the Pleistocene in North America. Their peculiar tooth morphology has proven to be challenging for palaeodietary analyses of this group. Here we...

Because body size interacts with many fundamental biological properties of a species, body size evolution can be an essential component of the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Here we investigate how body size evolution can be linked to the clade-specific diversification dynamics in different geographical regions. We analyse an extensive...

Proboscideans, and elephants in particular, played a key role in Pleistocene mammal communities in Europe. The British Pleistocene fossil record provides a unique opportunity to study changes in proboscidean feeding ecology associated with environmental proxy data such as pollen records and the presence of competitors. Here we utilize a recently in...

Ungulate diets may vary following differences in vegetation, and their body size is affected by a complex set of ecological and physiological variables. Here we analyse Middle and Late Pleistocene British and German ungulate palaeocommunities to test whether there are significant correlations of diet and body size of ungulate species with vegetatio...

Abstract We discuss a proboscidean bone fragment discovered in southern Finland, including the morphological analysis of the bone, as well as pollen and diatom analyses from sediment contained in the marrow cavity. Preliminary analysis of the bone suggested petrification and thus an apparently old age, while the microfossil assemblages include num...

Dietary analyses of herbivorous mammals are important for paleoecological reconstruction. Several methods applicable to fossil teeth have been developed lately. The mesowear method based on wear-induced occlusal shape and relief of ungulate molars has proven to be a robust method for dietary analysis. In its original form it can only be used for se...

There is accumulating evidence that macroevolutionary patterns of mammal evolution during the Cenozoic follow similar trajectories on different continents. This would suggest that such patterns are strongly determined by global abiotic factors, such as climate, or by basic eco-evolutionary processes such as filling of niches by specialization. The...

There is accumulating evidence that macroevolutionary patterns of mammal evolution during the Cenozoic follow similar trajectories on different conti- nents. This would suggest that such patterns are strongly determined by global abiotic factors, such as climate, or by basic eco-evolutionary processes such as filling of niches by specialization. Th...

Body size affects nearly all aspects of organismal biology, so it is important to understand the constraints and dynamics of body size evolution. Despite empirical work on the macroevolution and macroecology of minimum and maximum size, there is little general quantitative theory on rates and limits of body size evolution. We present a general theo...

A classic question in evolutionary biology concerns the tempo and mode of lineage evolution. Considered variously in relation to resource utilization, intrinsic constraints or hierarchic level, the question of how evolutionary change occurs in general has continued to draw the attention of the field for over a century and a half. Here we use the la...

How fast can a mammal evolve from the size of a mouse to the size of an elephant? Achieving such a large transformation calls for major biological reorganization. Thus, the speed at which this occurs has important implications for extensive faunal changes, including adaptive radiations and recovery from mass extinctions. To quantify the pace of lar...

How Mammals Grew in Size Mammals diversified greatly after the end-Cretaceous extinction, which eliminated the dominant land animals (dinosaurs). Smith et al. (p. 1216 ) examined how the maximum size of mammals increased during their radiation in each continent. Overall, mammal size increased rapidly, then leveled off after about 25 million years....

Background: Fossil data sets are typically point-like, i.e. they provide information about a fossil fauna only for scattered localities. Modern distribution data are typically based on grid cells, and provide a (nearly) full description of the fauna. Question: How good are estimates of the characteristics of the whole fauna that one obtains by look...

Background/Question/Methods Macroecologists often focus on body size as a factor of interest because it serves as a proxy for many different aspects of an organism's biology. Size results from a complex and dynamic tradeoff between physiology, life history, environment, phylogenetic constraints, and past geologic and/or climatic history. Nonetheles...