Mammalian faunas from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Casablanca (Morocco)

Abstract

In the frame of the Franco–Moroccan ‘Programme Casablanca’, several important new Late Miocene to Late Pleistocene mammalian localities have been excavated in the Casablanca area. The rodent fauna of Lissasfa attests to faunal exchanges with Spain and shows that the ‘Quaternary’ of Casablanca dates back to the Late Miocene. Ahl al Oughlam, with more than 100 vertebrate species, is by far the richest paleontological locality of northwestern Africa, but shows that by Late Pliocene, at 2.5 Ma, faunas of this region were already less diverse than in eastern Africa. The Thomas and Oulad Hamida quarries yield, in several continental levels interstratified with high-marine transgressive ones, a succession of late Early to Late Pleistocene faunas associated with lithic industries and Homo remains, which greatly help calibrating mammalian evolution in this part of Africa. The Late Pleistocene is also documented by several new sites, all of which, unfortunately, were destroyed before they could be properly excavated. All sites are threatened by urbanisation, emphasising the need for preservation of the few remaining ones.

Keywords:

• Morocco
• northwestern Africa
• Pliocene
• Pleistocene
• mammalian fauna

Acknowledgements

We thank the former and present Heads of the ‘Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine’, Rabat, respectively, J. Hassar-Benslimane and A. Akerraz, for having allowed us to work in the frame of the ‘Programme Casablanca’ that was mostly supported by the Ministère des Affaires Culturelles du Royaume du Maroc, the French Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et Européennes, the Région Aquitaine and the Department of Human Evolution of the Max Planck Institute at Leipzig. We also thank N.E. Jalil and the organisers of the NAVEP1 Congress for having invited us to Marrakech.