Les Spatangus du Miocène et du Pliocène de l’Ouest de la France

Numerous fragments of spatangoid echinoids have been discovered in the Pliocene deposits of Challans, in Vendée (western France). In spite of the fragmentary data of the samples, a reconstitution of a complete test could be realized using the different fragments and their symetrization. The general shape of the test, and its architectural and ornemental characters allow establishing the presence of the genus Spatangus in western France during the end of Neogene. It allows to precise the biogeography of the genus Spatangus and of the morphological group S. (S.) purpureus on the Atlantic coast after the Messinian crisis. The Pliocene species is compared to the Miocene Spatangus (Phymapatagus) brittanus, abundant in Anjou, Brittany and Touraine. This older species was refered to the subgenus Phymapatagus according to the presumed lack of primary tubercles on its posterior interambulacrum. The discovery of well-preserved specimens, with primary tubercles on every parts of the test, in the Middle Miocene of Brittany allows to refute this subgeneric distinction and to refer the species brittanus to the subgenus Spatangus (Spatangus). The presence of this subgenus in western France is finally confirmed from Middle Miocene to Pliocene.     

Les premiers Européens et la dynamique des interactions avec leur environnement : comportement écologique et niveau de cognition

Men and Carnivores used to live very closely during the Lower Pleistocene as show the assemblages. This allows us to reconstruct their behaviors and to bring up the idea that they used to share an ecological niche. It is also possible to understand the evolution of their behaviors, as regards the food supply, and the way they used to live in the sites. The first Europeans had a great capacity for adaptation, as well as a certain vulnerability, just like the Carnivores. The acquisitions of specialized technics are likely to have reduced this capacity for adaptation, as they got free from their opportunistic predator position.     

Diaceratherium massiliae nov. sp. des argiles oligocènes de Saint-André et Saint-Henri à Marseille et de Les Milles près d’Aix-en-Provence (SE de la France), premier grand Rhinocerotidae brachypode européen

A revision of all previously collected mammalian fossils from the two Late Oligocene sites of Saint-André and Saint-Henri in Marseille (both from the MP 26 reference-level) allows us to identify three Rhinocerotoidea species: Protaceratherium albigense, Ronzotherium romani, Diaceratherium massiliae nov. sp., and maybe a fourth one, Eggysodon cf. gaudryi. Only the first two were previously known there. D. massiliae nov. sp. is found together with R. romani; it is the first case of sympatry ever known between the two genera. D. massiliae nov. sp. is then the most ancient Diaceratherium in Europe, where the genus was previously unknown before the MP 29 reference-level. It is a very large species whose limb bones proportions foreshadow these of the later species of the genus, especially D. lemanense from the Late Oligocene-Early Miocene. This suggests a possible phylogenetic link between D. massiliae nov. sp. and D. lemanense, and the coexistence of at least two different but partially contemporaneous lineages among the European Diaceratherium. In Les Milles near Aix-en-Provence, also from the MP 26 reference-level, the three species P. albigense, R. romani and D. massiliae nov. sp. were also found.     

Macrauchenia patachonica Owen (Mammalia, Litopterna) de la région de São Raimundo Nonato (Piauí, Nordeste brésilien) et la diversité des Macraucheniidae pléistocènes

The São Raimundo Nonato (Piauí, Northeastern Brazil) area yielded about 50 Macraucheniidae remains. The study of this material and of other fossils from Northeastern Brazil (Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte) shows a great similarity to Macrauchenia patachonica as it was defined in Argentina, which is the most abundant of the three species pertaining to the genus. Thus the taxon Xenorhinotherium bahiense created in 1988 by Cartelle et Lessa for a material discovered in the Bahia State and assigned to use for all the Quaternary Litopterns from tropical Brazil appears to be no more than a junior synonym of it. M. patachonica seems to have occupied very varied biotopes from sea level up to a high of 4000 m, and from the cold Southern Patagonia to the Equatorial Venezuela. The species lived from the Middle Pleistocene up to the beginning of the Holocene.     

Les vagues de peuplements humains au Pléistocène inférieur et moyen dans le bassin de la Loire moyenne, région Centre, France. Apports de l’étude des formations fluviatiles

Evidence of earliest human settlements had been searched in the alluvial formations laid down in the Middle Loire Basin. Many stepped sheets deposited during the successive interglacial-glacial quaternary cycles are studied in four valleys of the Loire tributaries: the Creuse, Indre, Cher and Loir rivers. These sandy remnants are systematically dated, using the Electron Spin Resonance method applied on bleached fluvial quartz. Five settlements which contain very Early Palaeolithic industries with Mode 1 technology were occupied during the Lower Pleistocene. About eighty sites with hand-axe assemblages are observed in Middle Pleistocene remnants; nine of these are described in this paper. The results theorize that the geographical center of France (47°N) would be reached by two influxes of human populations with an interval around 400 years, because major climatic pejorations, particularly at the end of the Lower Pleistocene. These two populations produced lithic industries with many differences in supply of raw materials and in techniques of striking. Not any typologic link had been observed joining the two industrial unities.     

Précisions sur le patron d’empilement de dépôts du Cénomanien-Turonien de Somolinos (Chaîne Ibérique, Espagne) d’après l’étude palynologique

The Somolinos outcrop was widely studied in detailed correlations, stratigraphical architecture and high frequency sequence analysis of Central System and Iberian range successions. A rich assemblage of echinoids, ammonites, bivalves and bryozoans was described; conversely, the palynological study of the Late Cretaceous levels from Somolinos has never been performed up to now. A palynological study of two intervals within a monotonous alternation of grey marls and nodular limestone succession in the Somolinos section was carried out. The two intervals sampled are located in two correlative sequences of Late Cenomanian-Early Turonian and mid Turonian ages, respectively. Both sequences are separated by a sequence boundary, but its location and age in the stratigraphic record differs depending on the authors and the Basin considered. A rich palynofacies with abundant dinoflagellate cysts, pteridophyte spores, conifer pollens and breviary angiosperm grains of the normapolles group is described; besides, inner linings of acid resistant microforaminiferal tests were also found. The analysis of the palynological diagrams clearly indicates that the upper interval corresponds to open sea neritic sediments, deposited in more distal sedimentary environments than those of the lower interval, which were deposited in more proximal environments. This evolution of sedimentary environments represents a major sedimentary change in the general shallowing upwards trend of the late Albian-mid Turonian 2nd order succession, revealing a major facies belt retrogradation of the sequence containing the upper interval. This retrogradational event allows to accurately place the sequence boundary and to improve the arrangement of the low frequency (3rd order) depositional stacking pattern of the Early-mid Turonian in the Iberian Basin and other European and Tethyan basins.     

Étude taphonomique, paléoécologique et archéozoologique des faunes de grands mammifères de la seconde moitié du Pléistocène inférieur de la grotte du Vallonnet (Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Alpes-Maritimes, France)

Vallonnet cave (Alpes-Maritimes, France) provided archaic lithic tools together with a big amount of large mammals of the end of lower pleistocene. At the crossing of diverse ecological niches in time and space, three main levels and within them several smaller units were distinguished. The poorly mineralized bones witnessed a huge diagenetic fragmentation. The presence of the animals in the cave seems to be linked to the reasons of their death. The exhaustive and systematic observation of the bones, like the bears probably used to die inside the cave. Some other carnivores especially hyenas, used the cave as a nursery. Man also occupied the cave and had an activity mainly on large cervid bones and on some other species as well. The very progressive deposit gave a way for carnivores and porcupine to gnaw the bones on the ground before their burial. The succession of actions (man, carnivores and porcupine) on the same bones is characteristic on Vallonnet large mammals bones.     

Évaluation de la réponse au traitement des lymphomes : rôle de la TEP-FDG

Positron emission tomography (PET) with FDG has a prominent role in the staging of lymphoma, including Hodgkin's lymphoma and aggressive non Hodgkin's lymphoma. Its value in the assessment of end therapy response is also well established, especially with residual masses on CT scan to differentiate between fibrosis (scar) and active tissue. International experts with the International Harmonization Project of lymphoma have proposed a set of interpretation criteria. Finally, FDG-PET looks very promising in the early response assessment; it has shown to be predictive of chemosensitivity and of therapy response. Interpretation criteria have been improved and proposed. FDG-PET usefulness is being evaluated in national and international research protocols where therapeutic strategies are based on FDG-PET results.     

Reconstitution 3D par Computerized-tomography (CT) et endocrâne virtuel du crâne 5 du site de la Sima de Los Huesos (Atapuerca)

The 3d Ct reconstruction and virtual brain endocast of Cranium 5 from the site of “La Sima de los Huesos” (Atapuerca), allows us to get new information to increase the study and knowledge of Homo heidelbergensis population, and to compare this specimen with others in the fossil record, in order to understand the evolutionary process of the brain, focusing on the middle Pleistocene period. Furthermore, we can observe the changes this species (Homo heidelbergensis) has undergone, at least in Sima de los Huesos population making comparative studies with African and Asian middle Pleistocene specimens. We have used the new data to compare European Homo heidelbergensis represented by SH5 with Kabwe, a controversial specimen considered by some authors like the African Homo heidelbergensis representative, in order to establish the similarities and differences between both specimens.     

Proposition méthodologique pour une étude des esthétiques du Mésolithique : une analyse sociologique-anthropologique de la fin du Tardiglaciaire et durant le Postglaciaire en Europe occidentale

Do the decorated productions cover esthetics, i.e. the whole of the symbolic systems of a culture of hunters-gatherers? How to leave this glance with the aesthetic requirements that we other Westerners, pose on all things… and to exceed the debate of the artistic expressions thought from the aesthetic point of view, like “works of art” objects and “stylistics” objects? It is out of question “to make a fetish” of the productions decorated “works of art” while placing them at the starting point with our reflexion, (Studying them from a functional, technological, typological, art for art, meaningful point of view…) but to associate another of dimensions of the aesthetic experiment, i.e., the context of the decorated productions.     

Le bassin de l’homme du Pléistocène supérieur de Liujiang, Sud de la Chine : taille du corps, forme du corps et encéphalisation

The Late Pleistocene hominin fossil assemblage from Liujiang, South China include a fairly well-preserved cranium, a right os coxa, a complete sacrum, and other postcranial elements all belonging to a single individual. This rare discovery offers us a unique and singular opportunity in understanding this Late Pleistocene hominin's body proportion and relative cranial capacity (encephalization quotient [EQ]), and also pelvic morphology. Using the available right innominate and its mirror-imaged left side, we reconstruct Liujiang hominin's pelvis. Our analysis of the pelvis indicates that the Liujiang hominin has a very gracile and modern-like pelvic morphology. Indeed, all of the pelvic dimensions are smaller than those of other Pleistocene hominins. Moreover, the pelvic characteristics typical of Middle and Late Pleistocene hominins including Neanderthals cannot be identified in the Liujiang pelvis. In contrast, both Liujiang's metric and non-metric features indicate affinities to more recent human populations including our modern Chinese collections from Guangxi of south China. Further support of this assessment comes from the EQ value of 5.754 for Liujiang which is closer to Minatogawa 2 and modern Chinese populations than to Middle and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins. Our analysis of body shape shows that Liujiang has body proportion (i.e. body height relative to body breadth) typical of warm-adapted populations. Based on these findings, we reason that the modern physical characteristics of Liujiang may allude to a more recent geological age. Alternatively, its morphological “modernity” could also point to a much higher degree of skeletal variation within Late Pleistocene hominins in East Asia.     

Smilodon populator et Protocyon troglodytes, deux superprédateurs du Pléistocène supérieur de la Serra da Capivara (Piauí) au Nordeste du Brésil

Among the fossiliferous sites of the Serra da Capivara national park region (South Eastern Piauí), two have yielded interesting remains of the two large Upper Pleistocene Carnivora, Protocyon troglodytes (Lund, 1838) and Smilodon populator Lund, 1842, the Toca da Cima dos Pilão and the Toca das Moendas, both in the municipality of Coronel José Dias. In these two caverns, numerous remains of preys were found, namely, for the Toca da Cima dos Pilão, the two peccaries Dicotyles tajacu and Tayassu pecari, the medium sized ground sloth Catonyx cuvieri and the giant armadillo Pampatherium; for the Toca das Moendas Palaeolama, Equids and Cervids add to that list. The two sites were used as dens by the two Carnivora species. In the Toca das Moendas, a near complete adult skull and a hemimandible of the large Canid P. troglodytes were found. The skull is the third ever known for the species. Its dimensions are very similar to those of a complete skull from the Toca da Boa Vista (Campo Formoso, Bahia, Brazil) described by Cartelle et Langguth (1999), and to those of an incomplete skull from the banks of the Bermejo River (Formosa Province, Argentina), described by Prevosti et al. (2005). It fits perfectly, like the teeth, with the anatomical characteristics of the species P. troglodytes: wide muzzle, short palate, very reduced and forwardly offset protocone of the P4/, etc. The dimensions of the cheek teeth correspond well with those of numerous teeth from Lagoa Santa (Minas Gerais, Brazil) of the Lund Collection preserved in the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. The same site of Toca das Moendas yielded two left hemimandibles of the Machairodontine S. populator Lund, 1842, an adult and a very young ones. We study them together with other remarkable remains from the Toca da Cima dos Pilão, namely an adult upper canine and an adult hemimandible. The upper canine is one of the longest ever described for S. populator. The P/4 are somewhat longer than those of the Californian Smilodon fatalis (Leidy, 1868), and the M/1 are about of the same average length but somewhat narrower. The segment P/4-M/1 is relatively short. The dimensions of the upper canine and of the lower cheek teeth fit well with those of some teeth from Lagoa Santa (Minas Gerais, Brazil) and from Argentina preserved in the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. We describe particularly the decidual lower dentition, badly known in that species. The rather weak milk canine has a piriform outline. The D/3 is constituted by a strong protoconid flanked with two small cuspids, an anterior and a posterior ones. The D/4 (deciduous carnassial) shows a strong paraconid followed by a higher protoconid and a small posterior cuspid. These milk teeth, without any abrasion mark, suggest that our young specimen was less than three month old.     

Euxinocythere (Ostracoda, Cytheridae, Leptocytherinae) du Miocène supérieur du Bassin de Turiec (Slovaquie) : taxonomie et paléoécologie

Eight new species of the family Cytheridae have been identified in the Upper Miocene deposits of the Turiec Basin (Slovakia), a small isolated intermountain depression. Six species are new - Euxinocythere aphroditae, E. delicata, E. lactea, E. minuscula, E. quadricostata, E. satyrica - and two are kept in open nomenclature. Their attribution to the genus Euxinocythere is based on arrangement of the hinge elements and of anterior marginal zone. This genus is known from brackish ostracod assemblages of the Paratethys and the Eastern Mediterranean while the species from the Turiec Basin are associated to fresh-water assemblages. The Euxinocythere have been found in littoral as well in deep limnic environment.     

Étude analytique d’une clavicule complète de subadulte d’Homo antecessor (site de Gran Dolina, Sierra d’Atapuerca, Burgos, Espagne)

This study reports on the skeletal remains of an infant clavicle - specimen ATD6-37 - belonging to the Homo antecessor species, unearthed at Lower Pleistocene level TD6 of the Gran Dolina site (Sierra de Atapuerca). Studied alongside a further adult specimen - ATD6-50 -, they provide us with significant information on two key paleobiological aspects of these early humans: body shape and development. Based on the analytical results, the paper proposes a more accurate proportional method for determining age at death is applied to the fossilized infant clavicle under study. It goes on to hypothesize on postcranial growth and body shape and discusses morphological patterns and age at death of these early humans through comparisons with a wide range of infant dental samples and clavicular specimens in early and modern humans.     

Les Megacricetodon du gisement karstique miocène moyen de Blanquatère 1 (Pyrénées-Orientales, Sud de la France) : nouvelles espèces, implications biochronologique et phylogénique

Three Megacricetodon species are recognized in the Middle Miocene locality of Blanquatère 1 (Languedoc-Roussillon province, France). Two are new, the small-sized M. tautavelensis nov. sp. the medium to large-sized M. aunayi nov. sp., the third one being the already known M. “collongensis-gersii”, a medium-sized species found in other Miocene localities of the area. Size and morphology differentiate these species. Such a high number of contemporaneous species of the genus Megacricetodon is found for the first time in a Miocene locality in the region and indicate that the evolution of this genus in western Europe is likely more complicated. It may testify both of a biogeographical differentiation and of migration events. According to our calibration charts, the deposit is dated ca. 16 Ma ago. The position of Vieux-Collonges (MN 5) and Sansan (MN 6) on the biochronological scale is also discussed, as well as the estimated age of the biozonal boundaries MN 3/MN 4, MN 4/MN 5 and MN 5/MN 6.     

Mise en place des dépôts de pente du site moustérien de La Rouquette à Puycelci (Tarn) : étude sédimentologique et implications paléoclimatiques

La Rouquette (Puycelci, Tarn) Mousterian site sedimentological study allowed to define three large stratigraphic complexes into the Mousterian scree infilling. The granulometry, petrography, morphoscopy and clays mineralogy studies show variations that can be correlated with climatic variations, results corrobored by fauna and microfauna studies. Those sedimentary record variations are related to different sources which allow paleoclimatic interpretations and give a chronostratigraphic frame for this site.     

Gravures et abstraction: Les gravures non figuratives de Roc-la-Tour I, le schiste gravé des Beaux-Sarts et les progrès de l’abstraction durant la Préhistoire et l’Histoire

Beyond the 75 animal and human pictures, the 491 Magdalenian engraved plaquettes bear 410 abstract signs, in 14 different types, among which eight were unknown up to now in South-Western France, (more than 130 cases). Some examples of all those signs are shown. Besides there are 213 groups of parallel lines. At “Les Beaux-Sarts”, less than 2 m from the hut described in 2003, another human excavation (maybe a tomb?) delivered a schist plaquette with 94 parallel lines carved on its surface, the lines appear as three groups of 14, 7 (or 8?) and 24 (or 28?) lines and one group of 17 (or 18?) oblique lines, with various secondary lines. Five thousand years before the cerebral center of precise calculation was at the beginning of its formation, this piece, out of the bases of which calculation might be subdivided, cannot be considered as the evidence that they were able to count. The author analyses the affective mental possibilities proved by those elements and puts them apart from the rational progress in the abstraction possibilities of the human brain, which occurred later all through ten thousand years.     

Proposition d’une échelle chronométrique autour de la limite Crétacé-Paléogène par cyclostratigraphie : coupe de l’Aïn Settara (Kalaat Senan, Tunisie centrale)

The Aïn Settara section (Kalaat Senan, Central Tunisia) exposes in very good conditions a continuous marl-limestone alternation, going from the Upper Maastrichtian to the Danian. The Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary is particularly better exposed than it is in the El Kef type section. The studied section reveals, at first, a typical bed-interbed decimetric to metric limestone-marl alternation. Upon this one, at a meter scale, a second mode of alternation is superimposed: between, firstly, sharp and thick bed-interbed bundles, and, secondly, more diffuse and thinner bundles, which are more difficult to split into beds and interbeds. This frame deals with the equinoxial-precession climatic-forcing. The bed-interbed alternation corresponds to the precession of 21.3 ka average period. The clear bundle-diffuse bundle alternation, comes from the amplitude modulation of the precession by the circa 100 ka period of the eccentricity. This succession is used to build a time floating-scale, adjusted on the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary. Fixing this boundary to the value of -65.0 Ma, we obtain a chronometric time-scale, going, for our section, from -65.8 up to -64.4 Ma, that is a total duration of 1.3 m.y. This scale allows to better localize in time the sedimentary and biological phenomenons, which encompass the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary.     

Candoninae trapézoïdales (Crustacea, Ostracoda) du Bassin de Turiec (Slovaquie) du Miocène supérieur : systématique, écologie et évolution

The trapezoidal Candoninae from the Turiec Basin in Slovakia referred to the Candona sitari- and to C. aculeata-groups have characters that contrast with the valves of the Recent central European Candonines. The particularities concern the degree of calcification, the zone of concrescence, the overlap, and the presence of protuberances, the dorsum and the tubercles. Within the sitari-group, these characters evolve simultaneously with rapid evolution of the valve outline from subtrapezoidal to trapezoidal in shape. The species of this group acquire valve contours similar to those of the trapezoidal Candoninae of the Lake Pannon and the recent fauna of the long-lived lakes. The trapezoidal Candoninae of the Turiec Basin are associated with candonines that have triangular and rectangular carapaces with a pointed posteroventral margin. These three morphotypes indicate relatively stable habitats with weak environmental fluctuations. The trapezoidal species are rare in the littoral facies in both the north and the marginal areas of the Turiec Basin, but very abundant in the centre and south of the Basin. They probably lived in a profundal environment and their evolution probably occurred in relation to both sexual reproduction and a benthonic mode of life. The two groups comprise 18 species, of which 15 are described as new.