Age of Pleistocene faunas from Bacon Hole, Wales

At present it is difficult to match British early Upper Pleistocene vertebrate faunas with the growing evidence for complex climatic change at this time derived from the oceanic oxygen isotope record and from long pollen cores. However, we report here new analyses of dated faunal assemblages from Bacon Hole, Wales, which indicate that the Ipswichian interglacial fauna dated at ∼125 kyr BP was followed by a Devensian interstadial fauna dated at ∼81 kyr BP, which still supported some supposedly typical inter-glacial mammals. Combined with evidence of an intervening ‘cold’ fauna from Stump Cross Cave dated at more than 83 kyr BP, these indications of complexity in faunal change at the Ipswichian–Devensian transition are more consistent with the oxygen isotope and pollen core data than traditional views.