Carnivora from the Late Early Pleistocene of Cal Guardiola (Terrassa, Vallès-Penedès Basin, Catalonia, Spain)

The paleontological site of Cal Guardiola (UTM 31T DG1702), on the western bank of the Torrent de Vallparadís (Terrassa, Catalonia, Spain), was discovered in early 1997 during the construction of a socio-sanitary building next to the Mútua de Terrassa. A report on the geology and stratigraphy of Cal Guardiola was published by Berástegui et al. (2000), including a preliminary report on the fauna. This preliminary study suggested an estimated age for Cal Guardiola of ca. 1.0 Ma (Berástegui et al., 2000). Unpublished paleomagnetic analyses, carried out by Miguel Garcés, indicate a reverse magnetization for the sampled sediments, which can be correlated to below the Brunhes-Matuyama geomagnetic boundary (pers. com. of M. Garcés in Postigo Mijarra et al., 2007), thus being older than 0.8 Ma. This dating roughly corresponds to the later part of the Epivillafranchian biochron (1.2 to 0.9 Ma), which in Europe is best represented by the faunal assemblages from Untermassfeld in Germany, Le Vallonnet in France, and Colle Curti and Slivia in Italy (Palombo et al., 2008 and references therein). The faunal assemblage from Cal Guardiola represents one of the latest Epivillafranchian faunas from Europe and thus deserves particular attention for unraveling the chronology of the dispersal events that took place during the Epivillafranchian-Galerian turnover. However, thus far only the primate remains from Cal Guardiola have been published (Alba et al., 2008), while the rest of the fauna remains unpublished. Here we describe the carnivore remains from Cal Guardiola, which record one of the latest occurrences of the hyenid Pachycrocuta in Europe and further attests the coexistence of two distinct ursid lineages by the latest Early Pleistocene in Europe.