PDF (Lo-Res) - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

152
SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEOBIOLOGY
FIGURE 11.—Area of sympatry of seabirds from Grotta Romanelli, Italy (Puffinus spp., Phalacrocorax aristotelis,
Rissa tridactyla, Pinguinus impennis). (•=fossil site.)
yrs. BP (Hernandez, 1995); Cala Genovesi on Levanzo Island
off Sicily {Puffinus puffinus, Calonectris diomedea), which is
younger than 11,180 yrs. BP (Cassoli and Tagliacozzo, 1982);
and Akrotiri Aetokremnos on Cyprus {Puffinus puffinus, Phalacrocorax
aristotelis), which is dated to 11,700-9000 yrs. BP
(Simmons, 1991; Mourer-Chauvire, in litt.). These faunas
mostly indicate conditions more or less similar to the present
day, which may indicate early Holocene age. The exception is
the Cueva de Nerja epipaleolithic layer (Figure 12), which indicates
cool Atlantic conditions and may date largely to the cold
Dryas 1 and/or Dryas 3 stadials. The fauna from Akrotiri
Aetokremnos (Figure 13) also may indicate a slightly colder
and more eutrophic sea around Cyprus than at present, perhaps
because the fossils were deposited during the Dryas 3 stadial.
UNDATED FAUNAS
There are a number of faunas containing seabirds that are not
at present satisfactorily dated. In these cases, consideration of
the environmental information given by the seabirds may help