Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of central-western Argentina from analysis of Late-Pleistocene mammal droppings

Abstract

Plant macrofossils studied in coprolites from small-sized, medium-sized and large mammals, dated by 14C to ca. 30.8-24 and 9kybp, allowed to record changes in local vegetation and its relation with geomorphological units. Paleobotanical samples were determined using microhistological analysis. We found that plant associations and the vegetation-geomorphology relation were similar in the two periods analyzed. According to this study, the Monte plant formation would reflect certain stability during the analyzed period in arid central-western Argentina, although this does not imply the absence of variations in plant structure.