Large- and small-mammal distribution patterns and chronostratigraphic boundaries from the Late Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene of the Italian peninsula.

Over the last 50 years the studies on terrestrial mammals of the Italian peninsula have provided a large volume of data and a moredetailed knowledge of faunal events during the Late Pliocene and Quaternary. Moreover geological, sedimentological, palynological andmagnetostratigraphical investigations on the Pliocene–Pleistocene continental sedimentary basins have yielded the possibility of adetailed calibration of the faunal successions. Thus, palaeontologists have been able to reconstruct faunal sequences and to proposebiochronological scales based on large and small mammals, respectively. In the present contribution an integration of the twobiochronological scales is proposed, and the successions of bioevents are carefully compared. This integrated approach allows theconstraint of the sequence of large- and small-mammal events in a more reliable way, and therefore it results in a more detailed andconsistent chronological use of mammalian assemblages. Particular attention is paid to the faunal changes that correspond to theMiddle–Late Pliocene (2.6 ma), Pliocene–Pleistocene (1.8 ma) and Early–Middle Pleistocene (Gauss–Matuyama transition) chronostratigraphicalboundaries.