The Upper Valdarno Plio-Pleistocene vertebrate record: an historical overview, with notes on palaeobiology and stratigraphic significance of some important taxa

Lorenzo Rook(*), Roman Croitor(**), Massimo Delfino(***), (****), Marco P. Ferretti(*), Gianni Gallai(*) & Marco Pavia(***)
(*) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via G. La Pira, 4 - 50121 Firenze (Italy). Corresponding author: phone: +39 055 2757520; fax: +39 055 218628; email: lorenzo.rook@unifi.it (**) Center for Archaeology, Institute of Cultural Heritage, str. Stefan Cel Mare, 1 - Kishinau MD-2001 (Republic of Moldova). (***) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino, Via Valperga Caluso, 35 - I-10125 Torino (Italy). (****) Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Edifici ICP, Campus de la UAB s/n, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona (Spain).

The Plio-Pleistocene fossiliferous mammal sites of the Upper Valdarno Basin (Tuscany, Italy) have been known since Renaissance times. Several mammal collections from there are housed at various Museums and Institutes. Various scientists or "fossil-hunters" collected all this material from Upper Valdarno over a long period of time up to the present days. We present here an overview of the history of these collections, as well as information on biochronology, taxonomy and palaeoecology on a selection of vertebrate taxa.

Upper Valdarno Basin, Fossil record, Plio-Pleistocene, Villafranchian, Tuscany.