Title: Small mammal fauna of Early Pleistocene age from the Xiaochangliang site in the Nihewan Basin, Hebei, northern China
Abstract: A large amount of sediments was taken from the horizon stratigraphically equivalent to the artifact layer in the Xiaochangliang site, an important archaeological site of Early Pleistocene age. The sediments were washed with fine-mesh screens to collect small mammal remains. The layer is dated as 1.36 Ma by paleomagnetic measurements. Small mammal remains are important for biostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental studies, but they have been hardly collected from the site before the present study. A large number of the remains collected by the screen-washing have revealed the characteristics of the small mammal fauna of the site. The fauna is compared with those of the four well-dated localities in the adjacent area. On the basis of the faunal characteristics and comparisons, we discuss the biostratigraphy and faunal turnover in the Late Pliocene and Pleistocene. Furthermore, we reconstruct the paleoenvironment around the site in the Early Pleistocene.