Manuscript Details Manuscript number GEOBIO_2018_44_R1 Title Biochronological framework for the late Galerian and early-middle Aurelian Mammal Ages of peninsular Italy Article type Research paper Abstract Following a recent chronostratigraphic revision of 17 fossiliferous sites hosting assemblages constituting local faunas of the Aurelian Mammal Age (AMA) for peninsular Italy, we provide a re-structured biochronological framework and discuss the current validity and significance of the Middle Pleistocene Faunal Units (FU) for this region. In contrast with the previous model of a wide faunal renewal during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9 (~330 ka), the First Occurrences (FO) of several species of the Torre in Pietra FU are significantly backdated and referred to the Fontana Ranuccio FU (530-400 ka). We show that the faunal renewal was more gradual and occurred earlier than previously assumed. Many taxa that are typical of the Late Pleistocene register their FO in the Fontana Ranuccio FU, latest Galerian, which is characterized by the almost total disappearance of Villafranchian taxa and by the persistence of typical Galerian taxa such as Dama clactoniana, Bison schoetensacki and Ursus deningeri, and by the FO of Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis, S. hemitoechus, Hippopotamus amphibius, Cervus elaphus eostepahnoceros, Ursus spelaeus, Canis lupus, and Vulpes vulpes. The next Torre in Pietra FU is characterized only by the FO of Megaloceros giganteus and of Mustela putorius. However, we observe that MIS 9 marks the actual moment when the faunal assemblages of this region are represented only by those taxa characterizing the late Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene. For this reason, we propose to consider the Torre in Pietra (lower levels) local fauna still as a conventional boundary for the Galerian-Aurelian transition. Finally, we remark that the strong faunal renewal in MIS 13, with six FOs, coincides with the temperate climatic conditions due to the absence of marked glacial periods that could have favored the FOs and the subsequent spread of these taxa. Keywords Galerian; Aurelian; Mammal Age; biochronology; chronostratigraphy; Middle Pleistocene; peninsular Italy Corresponding Author fabrizio marra Corresponding Author's Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia Institution Order of Authors Carmelo Petronio, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Anastassios Kotsakis, Leonardo Salari, fabrizio marra, Brian Jicha Suggested reviewers Danielle Schreve, Gennady Baryshnikov, Dimitris Kostopoulos, Frederic Lacombat, Lorenzo Rook, Adrian Lister Submission Files Included in this PDF File Name [File Type] Cover letter.doc [Cover Letter] detailed answers.doc [Response to Reviewers] Petronio et al._marked.doc [Manuscript File] Fig. 1.tif [Figure] Fig. 2.jpg [Figure] Fig. 3.jpg [Figure] TABLE 1_REV.doc [Table] TABLE 2 Ar-Ar_rev.doc [Table] To view all the submission files, including those not included in the PDF, click on the manuscript title on your EVISE Homepage, then click 'Download zip file'. Research Data Related to this Submission There are no linked research data sets for this submission. The following reason is given: Data will be made available on request Dear Gilles, please, consider the revised version of the paper "Biochronological framework for the late Galerian and early-middle Aurelian Mammal Ages of peninsular Italy", by C. Petronio, G. Di Stefano, T. Kotsakis, L. Salari, F. Marra, B. Jicha that I'm re-submitting to Geobios for possible publication. Besides describing the modifications performed according to the reviewers comments, I would like to drove your attention on the slight modifications we provided to the chronostratigraphy of two sites treated in our paper, in order to have your approval for including them in the revised version of our manuscript. In light of very recent field work I performed for an ongoing research project (Boschian et al., in progress) aimed at providing further direct age constraints to the geologic sections hosting archeological materials (both lithic and faunal assemblages) in the investigated area, I had the chance to acquire new elements allowing at refining the chronostratigraphic setting in two sites (i.e. Malagrotta and km 19.3 of Via Aurelia) described in the present paper submitted to Geobios. While the proposed slight modifications do not affect any of the attributions to the Faunal Units of the fossils that are the subject of the paper, and therefore have no implication for our topic, I believe that the paper would benefit from this more detailed information and it is worth to include it in this revised version. Indeed, this modification concerns the possibility to distinguish better between the MIS 13 and MIS 11 deposits at the abovementioned investigated sections, and since the faunal assemblages occurring within these deposits are part of the same Faunal Unit (Fontana Ranuccio FU), their allocation to MIS 11 or MIS 13, yet implying a difference in age of ca. 100 ky, is not influent regarding the FU of attribution. Therefore, I hope you may approve the introduction of these modifications in the revised text, along with those performed to address the reviewers comments and suggestions. Regarding these latter, please see detailed explanations provided hereby. We have provided all the modification requested in your editorial points. Reviewer #1 We accepted all the modifications/corrections provided in the annotated pdf and we have re- formulated the sentences marked as unclear. Concerning the suggestion to provide "visual" information about previous biochronologic framework, we think that an additional figure may be redundant with the detailed report in section '2. Historical background and paleontological setting', and we have addressed this issue by marking in bold in Figure 3 the FO of the taxa which were previously included within MIS 9. Reviewer #2 We have considered all the insightful comments and suggestions by this reviewer and we have provided modifications or argued our statements as follows. We would like to specify that our contribution discusses the relocation in late Galerian, Middle Pleistocene, of the FO of some taxa previously referred to the early Aurelian, late Middle Pleistocene (and not to Late Pleistocene as inferred by the reviewer). We would like to clarify that our biochronological review is not based solely on literature data, but that a large part of the fossil remains have been directly revised and, when necessary, taxonomically re-determined, as they are kept in the Paleontological Museum of the Sapienza University of Rome. Therefore, we have added a new paragraph in the methods section in which we more clearly report this fact. Regarding the observation that a characterizing point of a FO should be the simultaneous appearance of a species in geographically distanced regions, we agree and remark that we implicitly account for this concept, both in the introduction and in the discussion, by highlighting that following the proposed biochronologic revision the faunal renewal in Italy is more synchronous with the faunal renewal in Western Europe. We have more extensively discussed the taxonomic status of the wolf of Castel di Guido; however, in our opinion, the rank of chrono-subspecies for the little wolf of Lunel Viel, C. lupus lunellensis, remains valid in agreement with many other authors (eg, Brugal and Boudadi-Maligne, 2011; Boudadi-Maligne, 2012; Palombo, 2014; Sardella et al., 2014; Sansalone et al., 2015); We have extensively discussed the taxonomic status of the Cava Rinaldi bear in the evolutionary context U. deningeri - U. spelaeus, also incorporating most of the suggested references (e.g., Rabeder, 1999; Baryshnikov, 2006; Dabney et al., 2013); We have eliminated any reference to differences in diet between U. deningeri and U. spelaeus; We have well received the suggested reference (Baryshnikov, 2011) about the wildcat. In light of these modifications through which we attempted at receiving all the comments and suggestions provided by the reviewers we are now confident that our paper may be judged fit for publication. Thank you very much for your kind attention, Best regards, Fabrizio Marra Cited references: Baryshnikov, G., 2006. Morphometrical variability of cheek teeth in cave bears. Scientific Annals School of Geology AUTH, special vol. 98, 81-102. Baryshnikov, G.F., 2011. Pleistocene Felidae (Mammalia, Carnivora) from the Kudaro Paleolithic cave sites in the Caucasus. Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS 315, 197-226. Boudadi-Maligne, M., 2012. Une nouvelle sous-espèce de loup (Canis lupus maximus nov. subsp.) dans le Pléistocène supérieur d’Europe occidentale. A new subspecies of wolf (Canis lupus maximus nov. subsp.) from the upper Pleistocene of Western Europe. Comptes Rendus Palevol 11, 475-484. Brugal, J.P., Boudadi-Maligne, M., 2011. Quaternary small to large canids in Europe: Taxonomic status and biochronological contribution. Quaternary International 243, 171-182. Dabney, J., Knapp, M., Glocke, I., Gansauge, M.-T., Weihmann, A., Nickel, B., Valdiosera, C., García, N., Pääbo, S., Arsuaga, J.-L., 2013. Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Middle Pleistocene cave bear reconstructed from ultrashort DNA fragments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, 15758-15763. Palombo, M.R., 2014. Deconstructing mammal dispersals and faunal dynamics in SW Europe during the Quaternary. Quaternary Science Reviews 96, 50-71. Rabeder, G. 1999. Die Evolution des Höhlenbärengebisses. Mitteilungen der Kommission für Quartärforschung