Fig 1.
Geographic map with the location of the archeological sites used in this study along with the location of the deep-sea cores whose sedimentary record helped to establish the paleoclimatic correlations (MD04-2845 and MD99-2331).
Numbers identify the archeological sites as follows: 1-Dufaure. 2-Grotte Duruthy. 3-Bourrouilla. 4- Isturitz. 5-Espélugues. 6-Bois du Cantet. 7-La Vache. 8-Conques. 9-Abeurador. 10-Grotte du Salpêtre de Pompignan. 11-Abri Fontalès. 12-Peyrugues. 13-Peyrazet. 14-Roc de Combe. 15-Le Piage. 16-Combe Grenal. 17-Les Fieux. 18-Borie del Rey. 19-Le Flageolet 1 and 2. 20-Moulin du Roc. 21-La Ferrassie. 22-Abri Pataud. 23-Grotte Comarque. 24-Abri du Facteur. 25-Castanet. 26-Combe Saunière. 27-Pont d’Ambon. 28-Roc de Marcamps. 29-La Roche à Pierrot. 30-Montgaudier (Abri Pintaud-Gaudry). 31-Abri Ragout. 32-Bois Ragot. 33-Taillis-des-Coteaux. 34-Abri Garenne. 35-Les Cottés. 36-Abri Fritsch.
Table 1.
Presence (1) and absence (0) of some rodent species retrieved from the studied archaeological units with the total Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) when provided in the original reference.
Fig 2.
Temporal variations of the number of archeological sites that cross over each time interval.
Abbreviations are: MIS = Marine Isotope Stage; YD = Younger Dryas; HE = Heinrich event; LGM = Last Glacial Maximum. Grey intervals indicate the four Heinrich events and the Younger Dryas.
Fig 3.
Temporal variations of the occurrences of rodent species in southwestern France during the Late Pleistocene, illustrated by the computed relative frequency of taxa (scale 0–1, cf. text for details).
For comparison and discussion are also reported the oxygen isotope compositions of the Greenland ice cores (NGRIP) and the reconstructed Atlantic forest cover based on pollen assemblages from deep-sea cores MD04-2845 and MD99-2331 [6]. Numbers 2–12 refer to the Dansgaard-Oeschger interstadials. Rodent species still present nowadays in the study region are represented in brown, whereas the rodent species that became extinct are represented in blue. Grey intervals indicate the four Heinrich events and the Younger Dryas event. The hatched area indicates time-intervals with no data. The dashed black line represents the separation between Bølling and Allerød periods. See Fig 2 for abbreviations.
Fig 4.
Cluster analysis based on Bray–Curtis dissimilarity and constrained by the succession of time-intervals.
Numbers correspond to the time-intervals. The different periods are distinguished by the colors used in Fig 5. The three green periods that are not named in the figure correspond to periods between Heinrich events 5 and 4, between Heinrich events 4 and 3, Heinrich events 3 and 2. See Fig 2 for abbreviations.
Fig 5.
Correspondence analysis based on rodent associations defined for the species (circles) and each time-interval, gathered by following periods.
(▲): periods between Heinrich events 5 and 4; (x): Heinrich events 4 (40.2–38.3 ky BP); (▲): periods between Heinrich events 4 and 3 (38.3–32.7 ky BP); (x): Heinrich events 3 (32.7–29.0 ky BP); (▲): periods between Heinrich events 3 and 2 (29.0–26.0 ky BP); (x): Heinrich events 2 (26.0–24.0 ky BP); (*): Last Glacial Maximum (24.0–18.0 ky BP); (◊): Heinrich event 1 (18.0–14.7 ky BP); (Δ): Bølling (14.7–13.7 ky BP); (■): Allerød (13.7–12.9 ky BP); (□): Younger-Dryas (12.9–11.7 ky BP); (+): Holocene (11.7–10.9 ky BP). Time-intervals constituted by less than three stratigraphic units were excluded from the statistical analysis. See Fig 2 for abbreviations. A) Succession of periods obtained by time-intervals reported against Axis 1. B) Axis 1 reported against the Axis 2.
Fig 6.
Geographic maps of the occurrences of rodent species in southwestern France during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (in blue) and during the period of Bølling and Heinrich Event 1 (HE1) (in green).
A) Occurrences of garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) and wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), temperate-climate species. B) Occurrences of ground squirrel (Spermophilus sp.), collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) and root vole (Microtus oeconomus), cold-climate species.