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Located at the eastern corner of Mediterranean Europe, Greece occupies a critical position for mammal dispersals to/from Europe, Asia, and Africa and constitutes a potential passageway towards Western Europe. During recent decades, numerous fieldwork campaigns in several Pliocene–Pleistocene sites have greatly enriched the fossil record and provided valuable taxonomic and biostratigraphic data. However, a fully developed reference biochronological unit scheme for the Greek record that could contribute to correlations at a continental scale is still pending. In this article, we provide the updated Late Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene large mammal succession, and we introduce the Faunal Units (FUs) of Greece. We define eight FUs, the Milia, Dafnero, Gerakarou, Tsiotra Vryssi, Krimni, Apollonia, Marathousa, and Apidima FUs (from the oldest to the youngest), which are determined by a set of first and last local occurrences. The results form the basis for discussion of already set turnovers, dispersals, and extinction/immigration events and showcase the importance of the local record for the investigation of the European terrestrial ecosystems. By developing the first detailed biochronological scheme for the Pliocene–Pleistocene of Southeastern Europe, this study comprises the basis for an expanded Balkan faunal unit scale and a reference framework for future investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Early Pleistocene mammal communities of Europe are characterised by a great diversity of large carnivorans. Among them, the largest ever hyaenid, Pachycrocuta brevirostris, a fierce predator with great bone-cracking adaptations that has left its taphonomic signature on several fossiliferous sites. Here, we perform a rigorous taphonomic analysis focusing on bone surface modifications and damage patterns on large-sized ungulate bones from the site Tsiotra Vryssi (1.78 to ~1.5 Ma; Mygdonia Basin, Greece), aiming to identify the main biotic agent responsible for the modifications. Results reveal significant carnivore ravaging of the assemblage, and selective consumption of bones/bone portions related to nutrient value. Comparisons with modifications on similar-sized ungulate carcasses produced by extant and extinct predators, and similarities with Pachycrocuta-modified assemblages, indicate that Pachycrocuta was the principal agent of modification. Overall, this study not only provides taphonomic evidence for the interpretation of Tsiotra Vryssi, but also offers insights into the palaeobiology, and particularly carcass consumption behaviour of the giant hyaena. Hence, it advances our knowledge on carnivoran guild dynamics and prey– predator relationships during this epoch and has important implications for the investigations of the subsistence behaviour of the meat-eating hominins, who entered Eurasia at ~1.8 Ma, roughly synchronously with Pachycrocuta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mammutidae comprise a proboscidean family that originated in Africa during the late Oligocene, dispersed across the Holarctic during the Miocene, and survived in North America until the end of the Pleistocene. Despite their long evolutionary history and wide geographic distribution mammutids are particularly scarce in the Miocene of Eurasia. Here, we present a new mammutid specimen (an upper deciduous premolar) from the Upper Miocene locality of Sazak in southwestern Turkey. Morphological and metric traits of the tooth, in particular the well-expressed zygodonty, are distinct from the more basal Zygolophodon and permit its assignment to the more derived "Mammut." Due to the absence of more diagnostic specimens, a specific attribution is not possible; however, considering the Turolian age of the associated fauna an attribution to the Late Miocene representative of the genus, "Mammut" obliquelophus, is possible. Turolian mammutids are rare in the fossil record and therefore our knowledge remains only fragmentary. Despite the existence of a single specimen, the presence of this genus in Sazak corresponds to its first report in the Upper Miocene of Turkey, as well as the first one in western Asia. The presence of "Mammut" in the Upper Miocene of China was recently confirmed, and therefore the record of "Mammut" at Sazak, i.e., at the western margin of Asia, not only adds to the scanty record of the genus in the Upper Miocene of Eurasia but also provides another line of evidence of the paleozoogeographic link enabling Europe–East Asia proboscidean interchanges during the Late Miocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]