Abstract The submerged sill in the Strait of Messina, which is located today at a minimum depth of 81 m below sea level (bsl), represents the only land connection between Sicily and mainland Italy (and thus Europe) during the last lowstand when the sea level locally stood at about 126 m bsl. Today, the sea crossing to Sicily, although it is less than 4 km at the narrowest point, faces hazardous sea conditions, made famous by the myth of Scylla and Charybdis. Through a multidisciplinary research project, we document the timing and mode of emergence of this land connection during the last 40 kyr. The integrated analysis takes into consideration morphobathymetric and lithological data, and relative sea-level change (both isostatic and tectonic), resulting in the hypothesis that a continental land bridge lasted for at least 500 years between 21.5 and 20 cal ka BP. The emergence may have occurred over an even longer time span if one allows for seafloor erosion by marine currents that have lowered the seabed since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Modelling of palaeotidal velocities shows that sea crossings when sea level was lower than present would have faced even stronger and more hazardous sea currents than today, supporting the hypothesis that earliest human entry into Sicily most probably took place on foot during the period when the sill emerged as dry land. This hypothesis is compared with an analysis of Pleistocene vertebrate faunas in Sicily and mainland Italy, including a new radiocarbon date on bone collagen of an Equus hydruntinus specimen from Grotta di San Teodoro (23–21 cal ka BP), the dispersal abilities of the various animal species involved, particularly their swimming abilities, and the Palaeolithic archaeological record, all of which support the hypothesis of a relatively late land-based colonization of Sicily by Homo sapiens .

Abstract The Lagerstätte at Ashfall Fossil Beds—the result of supervolcanic eruption—preserves a mass-death assemblage of articulated skeletons of reptiles, birds, and mammals in a 3-m-thick pure volcanic ash near the base of the Cap Rock Member of the Ash Hollow Formation in Antelope County, Nebraska. The ash originated from the Bruneau-Jarbidge caldera in southwest Idaho, some 1600 km away, and it is geochemically matched with the Ibex Hollow tuff (11.93 Ma). Ashfall is a critical Clarendonian North American Land Mammal Age locality. More than 20 taxa—predominantly medium- and large-sized ungulates preserved in three dimensions—are buried in a late Miocene paleodepression (waterhole) filled with tephra reworked from the landscape by wind and water. Smaller taxa, such as birds, turtles, and moschids, died shortly after the pyroclastic airfall event and their remains are preserved in the basal ash. Remains from the medium-sized ungulates (equids and camelids) are separated from the underlying smaller skeletons by several centimeters of ash, indicating that these animals died at a slightly later time. In turn, more than 100 mostly intact skeletons of the barrel-bodied rhinoceros, Teleoceras major , overlie the remains of the medium-sized taxa. Pathologic bone on the limbs and skulls of the horses, camels, and rhinos suggests short-term survival and slow death several weeks or months after the pyroclastic airfall event. Exquisite preservation in an information-rich context allows aspects of the behavior, social structure, intraspecific variability, and pathology of extinct species to be reconstructed.

Abstract Riverbluff Cave developed near the southern margin of the Springfield Plateau as a single passage between James River and its tributary, Ward Branch. Portions of the cave preserve a general fining-upward sediment sequence, but with highly fossiliferous gravel beds near the middle. These gravel beds include fragments of various vertebrates, including mammoth and horse. Trackways and claw marks are also preserved atop the sediment in numerous locations. Cosmogenic isotope data provide burial dates for some of the sediment layers and fossil remains. The earliest sediment (reverse magnetic polarity) entered the cave at ~1.1 Ma, while the fossiliferous gravel bed is dated at ~0.74 Ma. The overlying laminated silts and clays have normal polarity with a burial date of ~0.65 Ma at the base. Thus, the sediment sequence spans the Matuyama/Brunhes paleomagnetic datum, and records at least 450 ka of sedimentation within the cave.