Large and small mammal distribution patterns and chronostratigraphic boundaries from the Late Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene of the Italian peninsula

Today palaeontologists have been able to reconstruct faunal sequences and to propose biochronological scales based on large and small mammals, respectively. In the present paper an integration of the two biochronological scales is proposed, and the succession of bioevents are carefully compared. This integrated approach allows the constraint of the sequence of large- and small-mammal events in a more realiable way, and therefore it results in a more detailed and consistent chronological use of mammalian assemblages.