Beacon Professor Lecture: Professor Clive Finlayson

Summary of Lecture

The Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary, around 2.6 million years ago, marks the onset of a new world, one that was thrown into the depths of cold and aridity. Plants and animals had to quickly adjust to the new conditions or face extinction. Others adapted; yet others, suited to the new conditions, emerged from the gene pools of their ancestors. A southerly latitude and proximity to the Atlantic made conditions relatively more tolerable in the Macaronesian islands (Canaries, Madeira, Azores) and in the area of the Strait of Gibraltar. Relics of a lost world of the Neogene Period somehow held on and adapted. They remain as relics of an ancient lost world. Later on, the end of the Middle Pleistocene (~129,000 years ago) appears to have been a significant boundary in respect of herbivorous mammals, which suffered considerable depletion. In contrast, most genera and species of European birds in the Middle Pleistocene survived into the Upper Pleistocene, even to the present day. Mixed into the climatic chaos that characterised the Upper Pleistocene was the extinction of the Neanderthals. Yet, in spite of the upheaval, Gibraltar was once again buffered against the worst that was to hit Europe.