First data on Late-Pleistocene rodents from Central arid Patagonia as paleoenvironmental indicators

Abstract

Late-Pleistocene rodent faunas from Patagonia are poorly known. Pardiñas and Teta (2008) studied seven micromammal fossil assemblages with chronologies between 13,000 and 7000 RCYBP mostly from western Andean areas or near the Atlantic coast. For the remainder of the vast Patagonian territory (> 700,000 km2) no late-Pleistocene/early-Holocene fossil micromammal assemblages have been reported (Pardiñas 1999). Here we briefly discuss the environmental significance of the paleontological site Torito Fissure (TF) (43° 16′ 46″ S, 69° 08′ 40″ W; 340 m a.s.l.), a rock crevice filled with organic material (feces, vegetation debris) and bones, found in the middle valley of the Chubut River (Figure 1). A 14C age of 12,010 ± 160 RCYBP (LP-1995) was obtained from a fragment of the organic matrix. The scarcity of other traditional paleoclimatic archives in dryland areas of Patagonia (> 80 percent of its territory) enhances the importance of this sample, the first coming from north-central Patagonia.