New fossil teeth of Theropithecus oswaldi (Cercopithecoidea) from the Early Pleistocene at Cueva Victoria (SE Spain) Carles Ferràndez-Cañadell a, * , Francesc Ribot b , Lluís Gibert c a Department d’Estratigrafia, Paleontologia i Geociències Marines, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí Franquès s/n, 08028 Barcelona, Spain b Montsant, 28, 1er -2a, 08031 Barcelona, Spain c Dept. Geoquímica, Petrologia i Prospecció Geològica, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí Franquès s/n, 08028 Barcelona, Spain article info Article history: Received 18 April 2013 Accepted 4 February 2014 Available online 5 August 2014 Keywords: Dispersal Fossil monkeys Straits of Gibraltar Filter bridge North Africa Western Europe abstract The presence of Theropithecus oswaldi in Europe was first reported in 1995 from the Early Pleistocene site of Cueva Victoria (SE Spain), showing the dispersal of this genus above 30  north latitude and into Europe. Later claims of the presence in Italy of Theropithecus in the Early Pleistocene, based on vertebral remains, are controversial. Here we report four additional teeth of T. oswaldi from Cueva Victoria. These and the previously described tooth correspond to a minimum of two individuals. The presence of T. oswaldi in North Africa and SE Iberia during the Early Pleistocene suggests a possible faunal dispersal from Africa into Europe through the Straits of Gibraltar, which would have acted as a filter bridge. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Excavations at the paleontological site of Cueva Victoria (Car- tagena, SE Spain) have recovered a large collection of fossil verte- brates that revealed great faunal diversity, with more than 70 species. The macrofauna include canids, felids, ursids, hyaenids, bovids, cervids, equids, rhinocerotids, proboscideans, marine mammals and primates. The recent study of the squamate reptiles and amphibians revealed the presence of six anurans, five lizards and three snakes, including the first occurrences of the toad Bufo viridis and the tortoise Testudo hermanni in the Early Pleistocene in Spain (Blain et al., 2008, 2010; Garcia-Porta, 2001). Up to 39 species of bird have been recognized (Sánchez-Marco, 2004). A number of new taxa have been defined from Cueva Victoria, including the canid Cuon rosi (Pons-Moyà and Moyà-Solà, 1978); the arvicolid Allophaiomys chalinei (Alcalde et al., 1981), later reassigned to a new genus, Victoriamys by Martin (2012); and the lagomorph Oryctola- gus giberti (de Marfà, 2008). The faunal association also includes Homo sp., based on an intermediate human phalanx (Gibert and Pons-Moyà, 1985; Pons-Moyà, 1985; Gibert et al., 1985, 2002; Gibert and Pérez-Pérez, 1989; Santamaría and Gibert, 1992; Palmqvist et al., 1996), which some authors (Martínez-Navarro et al., 2005) have suggested may belong to Theropithecus (see dis- cussion in Gibert et al., 2008, and Martínez-Navarro et al., 2008). The finding at Cueva Victoria, a right M 2 , CV-1 (Gibert et al., 1995, 1999), was the first evidence found for the presence of Theropithecus in Europe. Here we report four new teeth of Ther- opithecus oswaldi that were found during excavations in 2006e2011: a right P 4 , a left P 4 , a partial left M 3 and a partial molar. Geological setting Cueva Victoria is a large karstic system located in SE Spain (Fig. 1a), consisting of more than 3 km of galleries. Only those galleries connected with the outside were filled with sediment during the Pleistocene and contain fossils. The stratigraphic sequence (Ferràndez et al., 1989) shows two main lithostratigraphic units: a lower red clay and a fossiliferous breccia, which are covered by a flowstone at the top of the sequence (Fig. 1b). The lower unit consists of 1e3 m of red clay, which is the residual product of the dissolution of Triassic limestone (terra rossa). When karstic pro- cesses opened the cave to the outside, allochthonous material entered the cave, forming the upper fossiliferous breccia unit. This is composed of heterometric clasts of Triassic limestone with silty matrix of external origin, transported into the cave by flooding and gravitational processes. The thickness of the breccia changes * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: carlesferrandez@ub.edu, carlesferrandez@yahoo.es (C. Ferràndez-Cañadell), francesc.ribot@terra.es (F. Ribot), lgibert@ub.edu (L. Gibert). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Human Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhevol http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.02.020 0047-2484/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Human Evolution 74 (2014) 55e66