Neogene Mammals: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 44

Fossil Mammals of Asia, edited by and with contributions from world-renowned scholars, is the first major work devoted to the late Cenozoic (Neogene) mammalian biostratigraphy and geochronology of Asia. This volume employs cutting-edge biostratigraphic and geochemical dating methods to map the emergence of mammals across the continent. Written by specialists working in a variety of Asian regions, it uses data from many basins with spectacular fossil records to establish a groundbreaking geochronological framework for the evolution of land mammals. Asia's violent tectonic history has resulted in some of the world's most varied topography, and its high mountain ranges and intense monsoon climates have spawned widely diverse environments over time. These geologic conditions profoundly influenced the evolution of Asian mammals and their migration into Europe, Africa, and North America. Focusing on amazing new fossil finds that have redefined Asia's role in mammalian evolution, this volume synthesizes information from a range of field studies on Asian mammals and biostratigraphy, helping to trace the histories and movements of extinct and extant mammals from various major groups and all northern continents, and providing geologists with a richer understanding of a variety of Asian terrains.

During the last ZO years great progress has been achieved in our understanding of both earth history and vertebrate evolution. The result is that climatic/tectonic events in earth history can now be placed in a more precise and global time frame, that permit their evaluation as abiotic causal factors which might trigger extinction and dispersal events in vertebrate history. Great strides have also been made in genetics and cell biology, providing new insight into phylogenetic relationships among many vertebrates. These new data, along with data on chronologie resolution of earth history, provide tests of previous interpretations regarding ancestral-descendant relationships based solely on the fossil record. It is fitting and proper that a volume on European Neogene mammal chronology is produced at this time, to ensure that new interpretations of vertebrate evolution and chronology are based on the most accurate and current data. Vertebrate paleon tologists believe that the fossil record is the only secure data for measuring the actual course and tempo of vertebrate evolution. Knowledge of the fossil record must keep pace with advances in other areas of science so that inferences on vertebrate evolu tion are accurate and meaningful.

Its constant evolution over the millennia since its inception has made the Earth a dynamic entity, subject to numerous climactic and environmental forces that are forever changing this planet. In its most recent stage, the planet has seen an incredible diversification in plant and animal life, with the most prominent development of the Cenozoic era being the emergence of mammals. This book examines our most immediate ancestors and the geologic, geographic, and environmental factors that helped make their primacy inevitable.

The Late Cenozoic Yushe Basin, Shanxi Province, China embodies the bulk of our knowledge on successions of terrestrial vertebrates in the northern part of East Asia. Everything we know about Asian mammals of the last 6 million years has a historical basis in the documentation of the geology of Yushe. This volume introduces the basin in its geological setting, describes the succession of fossiliferous strata, and shows how it is dated. It develops an unsurpassed level of precision for its age control. Geological maps and stratigraphic sections provide the backbone for individual studies to follow on varied fossil groups. The volume explores the history of exploration of the last century in Yushe Basin and places development of paleontology there into the context of the birth of the modern epoch of science in China.

This book presents a comprehensive survey of current knowledge dervived from the discovery of many well-preserved fossil hominid primates and presents findings on factors in the turnover or transformation of faunas and floras in various regions throughout the Neogene period.

"This impressively comprehensive volume is a long-awaited and worthy successor to the now outdated 1978 classic, Evolution of African Mammals. A must-have reference work for everyone interested in mammalian evolution." David Pilbeam, Harvard University and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology --

This volume presents an array of different case studies which take as primary material data sourced from the NOW (‘New and Old Worlds’) database of fossil mammals. The NOW database was one of the very first large paleobiological databases, and since 1996 it has been expanded from including mainly Neogene European land mammals to cover the entire Cenozoic at a global scale. In the last two decades the number of works that are based in the use of huge databases to explore ecological and evolutionary questions has increased exponentially, and even though the importance of big data in paleobiological research has been outlined in selected chapters of general works, no volume has appeared before this one which solely focuses on the databases as a primary source in reconstructing the past. The purpose of this book is to provide an illustrative volume showing the importance of big data in paleobiological research, and presenting a broad array of unpublished examples and case studies. The book is mainly aimed to professional palaeobiologists working with Cenozoic land mammals, but the scope of the book is broad enough to fit the interest for evolutionary biologists, paleoclimatologists and paleoecologists. The volume is divided in four parts. The first part includes two chapters on the development of large paleobiological databases, providing a first-hand account on the logic and the functioning of these databases. This is a much-needed perspective which is ignored by most researchers and users of such databases and, even if centered in the NOW database, the lessons that can be learned from this part can be extended to other examples. After this introductory part, the body of the book follows and is divided into three parts: patterns in regional faunas; large scale patterns and processes; and ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary patterns of key taxa. Each chapter is written by well-known specialists in the field, with some participation of members of the NOW advisory board. The array of selected mammal taxa ranges from carnivores, equids, ruminants and rodents to the genus Homo. The topics studied also include the diversification and radiation of major clades, large-scale paleobiogeographical patterns, the evolution of ecomorphological patterns and paleobiological problems such as evolution of body size or species longevity. In most cases the results are discussed in relation to protracted environmental or paleogeographic changes.

This volume focuses on small mammal fossils from extinct Asian faunas of about 1 to 7 million years ago in North China. These played a role in the emergence of vertebrate paleontology as a modern science in that country. This second volume of the sub-series Late Cenozoic Yushe Basin, Shanxi Province, China: Geology and Fossil Mammals in the Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology book series deals with a rich microfauna fossil record; megafauna follow in subsequent volumes. This research on Yushe Basin fossils provides a view of changes in northeast Asian terrestrial faunas during the Late Neogene, and therefore is a key to the biochronology for a vast part of the continent. The faunas recovered by the multinational team working in this region represent changes in small mammal communities of the Yushe Basin, revealed on a finer time scale that has not been achieved previously. Detailed systematic studies on small mammal groups proceeded under the care of specialists are outlined in the chapters of this volume. Paleontologists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists will find this book appealing.