Pleistocene paleoenvironmental reconstructions and mammalian evolution in South-East Asia: focus on fossil faunas from Thailand

Mammalian faunal studies have provided various clues for a better reconstruction of hominid Quaternary paleoenvironments. In this work, two methods were used: (1) the cenogram method, based on a graphical representation of the mammalian community structure, and (2) the species richness of murine rodents to estimate climatic parameters. These methods were applied to Middle and Late Pleistocene mammalian faunas of South-East Asia, from South China to Indonesia. Special emphasis was laid on a fauna from north-east Thailand dated back to approximately 170,000 years (i.e. a glacial period). This Thai fauna seems characteristic of a slightly open forested environment intermediate between those of present-day central Myanmar and the northern part of South China. In the Thai fauna, the occurrence of both cool-loving mammalian taxa, currently living further north, and species of larger body size than their living counterparts, indicates cooler and probably drier climatic conditions than present-day climates in Thailand. These results are quite consistent with Middle Pleistocene palynological records from South China and eastern Java. From other less well-documented Pleistocene faunas, taken into account in this work, humid climatic conditions of interglacial periods were revealed from large mammalian taxa.