Small Grant for Exploratory Research: Biogeochronology of the Villafranchian Site of Seneze, Central France

维拉弗兰契亚期是欧洲的一个时间间隔，以生活在大约350万到150万年前的哺乳动物为基础，这个时间间隔见证了人类和动物进化的重要事件。尽管这一概念是在近150年前首次提出的，但关于单位和亚单位边界的时间仍然存在不确定性。PI将试图通过重新分析法国中部塞内泽火山火山口湖（maar）——维拉弗兰契晚期哺乳动物的主要栖息地之一，来澄清这一情况。60年来，Seneze没有进行过主要的古生物收集，而自1960年以来的地层和年代研究得出了相互矛盾的结果，范围在2.2-1.5 Ma之间。由于欧洲最早的人类工具（西班牙）和欧洲边缘地区（以色列，格鲁吉亚）的人类工具化石都出现在这个时间范围内，因此塞内泽的动物群经常被用作比较标准，以确定这种早期人类存在的年龄。团队的努力有三个互补的目标：1)澄清这个复杂遗址的当地地质；2)综合运用ESR、Ar-Ar和古地磁对比等测年方法对遗址及其动物群进行测年；3)在修正和定年的地层中从已知点收集哺乳动物化石。这项研究可能会产生新的重要哺乳动物标本，如陆生灵长类副猿。本申请为2001年6月至7月为期四周的地质和年龄测定季节申请资金。如果成功的话，计划在2002-2004年全面收集化石。

The Villafranchian is a European time interval based on the mammals which lived from roughly 3.5-1.5 million years ago, an interval which saw important events in human and faunal evolution. Although this concept was first proposed nearly 150 years ago, there is still uncertainty as to the timing of the unit and subunit boundaries. The PI's will attempt to clarify the situation through reanalysis of one of the major late Villafranchian mammalian localities, the volcanic explosion-crater lake (maar) of Seneze, in central France. No major paleontological collection has been undertaken at Seneze in 60 years, while stratigraphic and dating studies since 1960 have yielded conflicting results, ranging between 2.2-1.5 Ma. As the earliest human tools in Europe proper (Spain) and human fossils with tools at the margins of Europe (Israel, Georgia) occur close to this time range, the fauna from Seneze is often used as a standard for comparison to determine the age of such early human presence. The team effort has three complementary goals: 1) to clarify the local geology of this complex site; 2) to utilize a combination of dating methods (ESR, Ar-Ar and paleomagnetic correlation) on the site and its fauna; and 3) to collect mammalian fossils from known points within the revised and dated stratigraphy. New specimens of important mammals such as the terrestrial primate Paradolichopithecus may result from this study. This application requests funds for a four-week geological and age-dating season in June-July 2001. If that is successful, full-scale collecting of fossils is planned for 2002-2004.