An Early Pleistocene interglacial record from an intermontane basin of central Italy (Scoppito, L'Aquila)

Interdisciplinary investigations in the Early Pleistocene site of Madonna della Strada, near Scoppito (L'Aquila, central Italy) are presented, complementing the information on large mammal remains recovered in the 1950s (Mammuthus meridionalis, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, suid and small deer). New fragmentary remains of an old rhinoceros individual are examined and discussed. Pollen analysis documents an interglacial forest phase with considerable frequencies of taxa presently extinct in the Italian peninsula (Tsuga, Carya, Pterocarya, and Zelkova), starting with an expansion of conifers, progressively replaced by a mixed deciduous forest, followed by an increase of mediterranean vegetation. The abundance of extinct elements suggests an Early Pleistocene age older than the Jaramillo Subchron (1.07 Ma). The scarcity of Picea and Cedrus and the absence of Liquidambar suggest that the record should be younger than MIS 40 (approx. 1.3 Ma). This chronological setting indicates that Hippopotamus antiquus was already present in Italy before the Jaramillo palaeomagnetic inversion.