The Quaternary lions of Ukraine and a trend of decreasing size in Panthera spelaea

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Abstract

The fossil record of the cave lion, Panthera spelaea, suggests a gradual decrease in body size, the process peaking just before the extinction of the species at the end of the Late Pleistocene. Such an evolutionary trend appears rather unusual for a large felid species and requires further investigation. This study reviews the cave lions of Ukraine, whose fossils are known from 46 localities dated from 800 kyr to 18–17 kyr ago, with a special emphasis on size changes through time. We describe several important finds including those of Panthera spelaea fossilis from Sambir, Panthera spelaea ssp. from Bilykh Stin Cave and Panthera spelaea spelaea from Kryshtaleva Cave. We make subspecific identifications of specimens from the region and focus on their size characteristics. Our analysis of Ukrainian cave lions agrees with the temporal trend of decreasing size, particularly accelerating during MIS 2, as exemplified by the extremely small female skull from Kryshtaleva Cave. We provide a direct AMS date for this specimen (22.0–21.5 cal kyr BP), which suggests that the Kryshtaleva lioness must have belonged to a Panthera spelaea spelaea population forced south by the spreading ice sheet. We discuss some palaeoecological aspects of the evolutionary history and eventual extinction of the cave lion. Finally, we review the subfossil records of the extant lion Panthera leo known from several Ukrainian sites archaeologically dated to 6.4–2.0 kyr BP. These finds most probably represent the Persian lion Panthera leo persica.

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A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records

Lorraine Lisiecki, Maureen Raymo (2005)

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THE INTCAL20 NORTHERN HEMISPHERE RADIOCARBON AGE CALIBRATION CURVE (0–55 CAL kBP)

Paula J. Reimer, William E. N. Austin, Edouard Bard … (2020)

Radiocarbon ( 14 C) ages cannot provide absolutely dated chronologies for archaeological or paleoenvironmental studies directly but must be converted to calendar age equivalents using a calibration curve compensating for fluctuations in atmospheric 14 C concentration. Although calibration curves are constructed from independently dated archives, they invariably require revision as new data become available and our understanding of the Earth system improves. In this volume the international 14 C calibration curves for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, as well as for the ocean surface layer, have been updated to include a wealth of new data and extended to 55,000 cal BP. Based on tree rings, IntCal20 now extends as a fully atmospheric record to ca. 13,900 cal BP. For the older part of the timescale, IntCal20 comprises statistically integrated evidence from floating tree-ring chronologies, lacustrine and marine sediments, speleothems, and corals. We utilized improved evaluation of the timescales and location variable 14 C offsets from the atmosphere (reservoir age, dead carbon fraction) for each dataset. New statistical methods have refined the structure of the calibration curves while maintaining a robust treatment of uncertainties in the 14 C ages, the calendar ages and other corrections. The inclusion of modeled marine reservoir ages derived from a three-dimensional ocean circulation model has allowed us to apply more appropriate reservoir corrections to the marine 14 C data rather than the previous use of constant regional offsets from the atmosphere. Here we provide an overview of the new and revised datasets and the associated methods used for the construction of the IntCal20 curve and explore potential regional offsets for tree-ring data. We discuss the main differences with respect to the previous calibration curve, IntCal13, and some of the implications for archaeology and geosciences ranging from the recent past to the time of the extinction of the Neanderthals.