Publisher Description

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.

Author Biography

Xiaoming Wang is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and has been studying fossil land mammals in Asia, especially carnivores, for nearly twenty years. He has led numerous field expeditions in northern China, primarily in Inner Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau. He is the lead author of Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History. Lawrence J. Flynn is assistant director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University and a vertebrate paleontologist specializing in Asian studies. He is a longtime coinvestigator on the Siwalik Series of Pakistan and India, Miocene deposits well known for their richness, including large hominoids. He is also coinvestigator with Chinese and American scholars on diverse fossil deposits in several Chinese provinces, including the Late Neogene Yushe Basin. Mikael Fortelius is professor of evolutionary paleontology at the University of Helsinki and has conducted field-based research in Asia for more than twenty years, particularly in Turkey and China. He is a leader in the field of paleodiet reconstruction and the use of mammalian ecometrics in paleobiological research. Since 1992, he has coordinated the international NOW database of Neogene mammal localities and species of the Old World. He is the lead editor of Geology and Paleontology of the Miocene Sinap Formation, Turkey.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Toward a Continental Asian Biostratigraphic and Geochronologic Framework, by Xiao-ming Wang, Lawrence J. Flynn, and Mikael Fortelius Part I. East Asia 1. Neogene Land Mammal Stages/Ages of China: Toward the Goal to Establish an Asian Land Mammal Stage/Age Scheme, by Zhan-xiang Qiu, Zhu-ding Qiu, Tao Deng, Chuan-kui Li, Zhao-qun Zhang, Ban-yue Wang, and Xiao-ming Wang 2. North China Neogene Biochronology: A Chinese Standard, by Michael O. Woodburne, Richard H. Tedford, and Everett H. Lindsay 3. A Single Point Base Definition of the Xiejian Age as an Exemplar for Refining Chinese Land Mammal Ages, by Jin Meng, Jie Ye, Wen-yu Wu, Xi-jun Ni, and Shun-dong Bi 4. Early Miocene Xiejiahe and Sihong Fossil Localities and Their Faunas, Eastern China, by Zhu-ding Qiu and Zhan-xiang Qiu 5. Neogene Faunal Succession and Biochronology of Central Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia), by Zhu-ding Qiu, Xiao-ming Wang, and Qiang Li 6. Mammalian Biochronology of the Late Miocene Bahe Formation, by Zhao-qun Zhang, Anu Kaakinen, Li-ping Liu, Juha Pekka Lunkka, Sevket Sen, Wulf A. Gose, Zhu-ding Qiu, Shao-hua Zheng, and Mikael Fortelius 7. Stratigraphy and Paleoecology of the Classical Dragon Bone Localities of Baode County, Shaanxi Province, by Anu Kaakinen, Benjamin H. Passey, Zhao-qun Zhang, Li-ping Liu, Lauri J. Pesonen, and Mikael Fortelius 8. Review of the Litho-, Bio-, and Chronostratigraphy in the Nihewan Basin, Hebei, China, by Bao-quan Cai, Shao-hua Zheng, Joseph C. Liddicoat, and Qiang Li 9. Late Cenozoic Biostratigraphy of the Linxia Basin, Northwestern China, by Tao Deng, Zhan-xiang Qiu, Ban-yue Wang, Xiao-ming Wang, and Su-kuan Hou 10. Neogene Mammalian Biostratigraphy and Geochronology of the Tibetan Plateau, by Xiao-ming Wang, Qiang Li, Zhu-ding Qiu, Guang-pu Xie, Ban-yue Wang, Zhan-xiang Qiu, Zhijie J. Tseng, Gary T. Takeuchi, and Tao Deng 11. Hominoid-Producing Localities and Biostratigraphy in Yunnan, by Wei Dong and Guo-qin Qi 12. Miocene Land Mammals and Stratigraphy of Japan, by Yukimitsu Tomida, Hideo Nakaya, Haruo Saegusa, Kazunori Miyata, and Akira Fukuchi 13. Pliocene Land Mammals of Japan, by Ryohei Nakagawa, Yoshinari Kawamura, and Hiroyuki Taruno Part II. South and Southeast Asia 14. The Siwaliks and Neogene Evolutionary Biology in South Asia, by Lawrence J. Flynn, Everett H. Lindsay, David Pilbeam, S. Mahmood Raza, Michele E. Morgan, John C. Barry, Catherine E. Badgley, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, I. U. Cheema, Abdul Rahim Rajpar, and Neil D. Opdyke 15. The Neogene Siwaliks of the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan, by John C. Barry, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Catherine E. Badgley, Lawrence J. Flynn, Hannele Peltonen, I. U. Cheema, David Pilbeam, Everett H. Lindsay, S. Mahmood Raza, Abdul Rahim Rajpar, and Michele E. Morgan 16. Mammalian Neogene Biostratigraphy of the Sulaiman Province, Pakistan, by Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Gregoire Metais, Maeva J. Orliac, J.-Y. Crochet, Lawrence J. Flynn, Laurent Marivaux, Abdul Rahim Rajpar, G. Roohi, and Jean-Loup Welcomme 17. Indian Neogene Siwalik Mammalian Biostratigraphy: An Overview, by Rajeev Patnaik 18. Paleobiogeography and South Asian Small Mammals: Neogene Latitudinal Faunal Variation, by Lawrence J. Flynn and Wilma Wessels 19. Advances in the Biochronology and Biostratigraphy of the Continental Neogene of Myanmar, by Olivier Chavasseau, Aung Aung Khyaw, Yaowalak Chaimanee, Pauline Coster, Edouard-Georges Emonet, Aung Naing Soe, Mana Rugbumrung, Soe Thura Tun, and Jean-Jacques Jaeger Part III. North and Central Asia 20. Miocene Mammal Biostratigraphy of Central Mongolia (Valley of Lakes): New Results, by Gudrun Daxner-Hock, Demchig Badamgarav, Margarita Erbajeva, and Ursula Bettina Gohlich 21. Late Cenozoic Mammal Faunas of the Baikalian Region: Composition, Biochronology, Dispersal, and Correlation with Central Asia, by Margarita Erbajeva and Nadezhda Alexeeva 22. New Data on Miocene Biostratigraphy and Paleoclimatology of Olkhon Island (Lake Baikal, Siberia), by Gudrun Daxner-Hock, Madelaine Bohme, and Annette Kossler Part IV. West Asia and Adjacent Regions 23. Late Miocene Mammal Localities of Eastern Europe and Western Asia: Toward Biostratigraphic Synthesis, by Eleonora Vangengeim and Alexey S. Tesakov 24. Late Miocene (Turolian) Vertebrate Faunas from Southern European Russia, by Vadim V. Titov and Alexey S. Tesakov 25. Recent Advances in Paleobiological Research of the Late Miocene Maragheh Fauna, Northwest Iran, by Majid Mirzaie Ataabadi, Raymond L. Bernor, Dimitris S. Kostopoulos, Dominik Wolf, Zahra Orak, Gholamreza Zare, Hideo Nakaya, Mahito Watabe, and Mikael Fortelius 26. A Review of the Neogene Succession of the Muridae and Dipodidae from Anatolia with Special Reference to Taxa Known from Asia and/or Europe, by Hans de Bruijn, Engin Unay, and Kees Hordijk 27. Late Miocene Fossils from the Baynunah Formation, United Arab Emirates: Summary of a Decade of New Work, by Faysal Bibi, Andrew Hill, Mark Beech, and Walid Yasin 28. Neogene Mammal Biostratigraphy and Chronology of Greece, by George D. Koufos Part V. Zoogeography and Paleoecology 29. Continental-Scale Patterns in Neogene Mammal Community Evolution and Biogeography: A Europe-Asia Perspective, by Majid Mirzaie Ataabadi, Liping Liu, Jussi T. Eronen, Raymond L. Bernor, and Mikael Fortelius 30. Intercontinental Dispersals of Sicistine Rodents (Sicistinae, Dipodidae, Rodentia) Between Eurasia and North America, by Yuri Kimura 31. Paleodietary Comparisons of Ungulates Between the Late Miocene of China and Pikermi and Samos in Greece, by Nikos Solounias, Gina Semprebon, Matthew Mihlbachler, and Florent Rivals List of Contributors Taxonomic Index General Index

Review

This large volume makes a major step in drawing together the diverse research programs extending from Turkey and Georgia through central and south Asia to China, Asian Russia, Thailand, and Japan. Highly recommended. Choice Invaluable... Fossil Mammals of Asia has done what no project had previously accomplished and will be an indispensable tool for completing the process of establishing a continent-wide biochronology. -- John D. Orcutt, Quarterly Review of Biology The book's editors and contributors are to be congratulated. We must be grateful that this volume has come into being. It is a book into which specialists as well as other interested readers will have to delve again, and again, and again. -- Ephraim Nissan Priscum

Prizes

Commended for PROSE Award in Earth Sciences 2017

Review Quote

This large volume makes a major step in drawing together the diverse research programs extending from Turkey and Georgia through central and south Asia to China, Asian Russia, Thailand, and Japan. Highly recommended.

Excerpt from Book

Read the introduction to Fossil Mammals in Asia (to view in full screen, click on icon in bottom right-hand corner)

Description for Bookstore

Honorable Mention - 2013 PROSE Award in Earth Sciences, Association of American Publishers.

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