The continental record of Marine Isotope Stage 11 (Middle Pleistocene) on the Iberian Peninsula characterized by herpetofaunal assemblages

A new analysis of herpetofaunal assemblages from three key Acheulean sites on the Iberian Peninsula—Gran Dolina (Atapuerca), Áridos-1 (Madrid), and Ambrona (Soria)—reveals that Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS 11) experienced warmer and wetter conditions than today, with mean annual temperatures ranging from +0.3 to +2.7 °C and precipitation from +74.4 to +311.7 mm. The study suggests a progressive decline in temperature and rainfall toward the end of MIS 11, while also confirming the persistence of woodland habitats during interglacial and interstadial periods. Researchers applied mutual climatic range and habitat weighting methods to these assemblages, leveraging the ecological data of extant amphibians and reptiles to reconstruct past environmental conditions with unprecedented precision.

Blain, H.-A., Lozano‐Fernández, I., Ollé, A., Rodríguez, J., Santonja, M., & Pérez‐González, A. (2015). The continental record of Marine Isotope Stage 11 (Middle Pleistocene) on the Iberian Peninsula characterized by herpetofaunal assemblages. Journal of Quaternary Science, 30(7), 667–678. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2799