A new Villafranchian locality with large mammals from Guadix-Baza Basin (Granada): Fonelas P-1, the first record of a fauna close to the Plio-Pleistocene boundary in the Iberian Peninsula

Se da a conocer el nuevo yacimiento villafranquiense de Fonelas P-1 (Cuenca de Guadix-Baza, Granada). La excavación paleontológica sistemática desarrollada durante el mes de julio de 2001 ha proporcionado cerca de 500 restos fósiles cartografiados, en un excelente estado de conservación, pertenecientes a 20 géneros de grandes mamíferos y fósiles de 7 géneros de micromamíferos. El yacimiento se ubica en sedimentos finos fluviales depositados en un sistema de baja energía y alta sinuosidad. La singular y diversa asociación faunística identificada es realmente novedosa en la Península Ibérica, así como en el resto de Europa occidental, ya que permite plantear la coexistencia de diversas especies con distribuciones bioestratigráficas y paleobiogeográficas no coincidentes en el registro conocido hasta la actualidad. El conjunto de géneros y especies identificados permite situar el yacimiento en el Plioceno superior, dentro del Villafranquiense superior. Los atributos tafonómicos descriptivos preliminares indican una intensa actividad de carnívoros carroñeros durante la etapa bioestratinómica, lo que, una vez contrastado, permitirá efectuar con este excepcional registro interesantes inferencias sobre la paleoecología y los paleoambientes del Neógeno terminal en Europa occidental.A new Villafranchian locality, Fonelas P-1, from Guadix-Baza Basin (Granada, southeastern Spain) is presented. The paleontological systematic excavation carried out during July 2001 has provided nearly 500 fossil remains that were mapped, which show an excellent state of preservation and belong to 20 genera of large mammals, as well as several fossils of seven genera of small mammals. The assemblage is preserved in fine grained sediments deposited in a fluvial system of low energy and high sinuosity. The singular and diverse faunal association is new within the context of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as in the rest of Western Europe, since it allows to propose the coexistence of several species whose biostratigraphic and paleobiogeographic distributions were non coincident up to the present moment in the known fossil record. The set of genera and species identified in the assemblage places this locality in the Upper Pliocene, within the late Villafranchian. Preliminary descriptive taphonomic attributes indicate an intense activity of scavenging carnivores on the skeletal remains during the biostratinomic stage. Once this is confirmed with subsequent, more detailed studies, such exceptional record will allow to obtain interesting inferences on the paleoecology and paleoenvironments during the end of the Neogene