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Age of Mammuthus trogontherii from Kostolac, Serbia, and the entry of megaherbivores into Europe during the Late Matuyama climate revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Giovanni Muttoni ,
Giancarlo Scardia ,
Vesna Dimitrijević ,
Dennis V. Kent ,
Edoardo Monesi ,
Nemanja Mrdjić  and
Miomir Korać
Giovanni Muttoni*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra ‘Ardito Desio’, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Mangiagalli 34, I-20133 Milan, Italy
Giancarlo Scardia
Affiliation:
Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, SP 13506-900, Brazil
Vesna Dimitrijević
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Bioarchaeology, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Čika Ljubina 18-20, Belgrade, Serbia
Dennis V. Kent
Affiliation:
Earth & Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA
Edoardo Monesi
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra ‘Ardito Desio’, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Mangiagalli 34, I-20133 Milan, Italy
Nemanja Mrdjić
Affiliation:
Archaeological Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Knez Mihajlova 35, Belgrade, Serbia
Miomir Korać
Affiliation:
Archaeological Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Knez Mihajlova 35, Belgrade, Serbia
*
*Corresponding author.Email Address: [email protected]
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Abstract

At the Drmno open-pit coal mine near Kostolac in Serbia, a nearly complete skeleton of Mammuthus trogontherii (nicknamed Vika) was discovered in a fluvial deposit overlain by a loess–paleosol sequence where a second paleontological level named Nosak with remains of M. trogontherii was found. We studied the magnetostratigraphy of the Kostolac sedimentary sequence and found that the Vika layer dates to ~ 0.8 Ma, shortly before the Brunhes–Matuyama boundary. In addition, according to our age model and previously reported optically stimulated luminescence and electron spin resonance dates, the Nosak fossils have an estimated age of 0.19 Ma and lived during the earliest part of Marine Isotope Stage 6. It appears therefore that at Kostolac, M. trogontherii is preserved both at its earliest occurrence at ~ 0.8 Ma and close to its latest occurrence at 0.19 Ma, and may well have been present in between, albeit not yet found. We speculate that megaherbivores such as M. trogontherii entered Europe along a conjunct Danube–Po River migration conduit connecting western Asia-Levant with central-southern Europe where vast and exploitable ecosystems, particularly suited for steppe- or savanna-adapted megaherbivores from Asia and Africa, developed during the late early Pleistocene climate revolution at around 0.8 Ma.

Keywords

Mammuthus trogontheriiSerbiaMagnetostratigraphyLate MatuyamaPleistocene
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , November 2015 , pp. 439 - 447
Copyright
University of Washington

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