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Reconstructing habitats in central Amazonia using megafauna, sedimentology, radiocarbon, and isotope analyses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Dilce de Fátima Rossetti ,
Peter Mann de Toledo ,
Heloı́sa Maria Moraes-Santos  and
Antônio Emı́dio de Araújo Santos Jr.
Dilce de Fátima Rossetti*
Affiliation:
Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Av. Perimetral, 1901, CP 399, CEP 66710-530 Belém, PA, Brazil
Peter Mann de Toledo
Affiliation:
Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Av. Perimetral, 1901, CP 399, CEP 66710-530 Belém, PA, Brazil
Heloı́sa Maria Moraes-Santos
Affiliation:
Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Av. Perimetral, 1901, CP 399, CEP 66710-530 Belém, PA, Brazil
Antônio Emı́dio de Araújo Santos Jr.
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal do Pará, Centro de Geociências, Campus do Guamá S/N, Belém, PA, Brazil
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: (091) 249-0466.E-mail address: rossetti@museu-goeldi.br(D. de Fa"tima Rossetti).
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Abstract

A paleomegafauna site from central Amazonia with exceptional preservation of mastodons and ground sloths allows for the first time a precise age control based on 14C analysis, which, together with sedimentological and δ13C isotope data, provided the basis to discuss habitat evolution within the context of climate change during the past 15,000 yr. The fossil-bearing deposits, trapped within a depression in the Paleozoic basement, record three episodes of sedimentation formed on floodplains, with an intermediate unit recording a catastrophic deposition through debris flows, probably favored during fast floodings. The integrated approach presented herein supports a change in humidity in central Amazonia through the past 15,000 yr, with a shift from drier to arboreal savanna at 11,340 (±50) 14C yr B.P. and then to a dense forest like we see today at 4620 (±60) 14C yr B.P.

Keywords

AmazoniaPleistocenePaleontologyMammalsSedimentologyRadiocarbon datingLandscape evolution
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , May 2004 , pp. 289 - 300
Copyright
University of Washington

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