A GRAVEYARD of giant elephant remains has revealed how the colossal beasts roamed Earth some 300,000 years ago.
Scientists discovered the remains of one of the largest mammals to have ever walked the Earth – the Palaeoloxodon – at a quarry in Pampore, India.
The Palaeoloxodon was one of the largest ever mammals and was 13ft tall (artists impression)[/caption]
An ancient giant elephant graveyard was unearthed in India[/caption]
The giant skull from a straight tusked elephant[/caption]
A giant skull from a straight-tusked elephant known as the Palaeoloxodon was dug out from the quarry in 2000, followed by a cache of fossils and stone tools used by ancient humans.
At the time, researchers were able to determine that the death of the beast occurred some 300,000 years ago after breaks in the skull gave scientists a rare chance to look inside.
Scientists concluded that the giant elephant was sick at the time of its death.
Dr Simon Parfitt, a human evolution researcher at the Natural History Museum said: “When we peered into the damaged section, we could see that something was odd about the inside of the skull.
“Elephant skulls are full of air spaces to make the head lighter, but the bone along the sinus cavities had grown in an abnormal, spongy structure.
“We believe this indicates the individual was suffering from sinusitis, possibly due to an infection spreading from another part of the body or from a severe respiratory disease.
“Either way, it may have contributed to its death.”
The stone tools and broken elephant bones found in the quarry suggested that humans might have had something to do with its death.
Now scientists from across the globe have come together to piece together the earliest evidence of humans eating elephants.
According to a study in the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, they were feasting on the mammoth-sized creatures between 300,000-400,000 years ago.
Dr Parfitt said it offered new insights after skeletal fragments found at the site suggested that ancient humans were smashing the bones with heavy rocks to get to the nutritious marrow inside.
He said: “Discoveries like these have brought the region to the attention of archaeologists, who are now looking more closely for new butchery sites.
“Given the size of these animals, and the relatively small size of human groups, it’s unlikely they would have been able to fully butcher this elephant before it started to rot.
“This means they probably went for the prime cuts of meat rather than stripping the carcass, so there’s much less chance of any marks being left behind on the bone.”
It comes after a perfectly preserved sabre-toothed tiger cub was discovered frozen deep in Siberian ice.
The extinct beast was found complete with its fur and sharp claws intact as the remarkable discovery is believed to be over 35,000 years old.
The pristine remains of the three-week-old kitten were first found in 2020 in the Russian Republic of Sakha, along the Badyarikha River.
Its entire head and the front side of its upper body was discovered completely enclosed inside a block of ice, according to a paper published in.
Incredible images show the cub’s furry head with even its whiskers still pointing proudly out from under its nose.
Radiocarbon dating suggests the mummified big cat is from the Late Pleistocene period.
Frozen remains of mammals from around this time are said to be “very rare,” the researchers claim.
The kitten’s paws, including its pads and claws were all found well preserved on the front paws with the claws said to be sharp and strongly curved.
Six pairs of ribs were also visible with further fragments indicating at least 12 pairs existed.
Meanwhile, the world’s tiniest dinosaur egg from a whopping 80 million years ago has also been discovered “perfectly preserved”.
The miraculous find dates all the way back to the Late Cretacerous period and offers unbelievable insights into the reproductive habits of dinosaurs.
Six near-perfect egg fossils were gouged from a well-preserved nest bizarrely found at a construction site in Ganzhou, China – with them being just the size of a 50p.
Another ancient discovery saw miners stumble upon a preserved woolly rhino which experts hope to bring back to life.
The magnificent 10,000-year-old beast was found by gobsmacked workers while digging for gold.
There are also hopes of bringing such extinct animals – including woolly mammoths – back to life by using DNA found on such carcasses preserved in the ice.
Fact file: Palaeoloxodon
THE ancient creatures were the largest known species of elephants known.
The Palaeoloxodon stood at 13ft and weighed more than 13 tonnes.
Palaeoloxodon elephants were also known for their straight tusks and distinctive skull.
The tusks could reach up to 14ft in length and could weigh up to 420lbs.
The elephants at Pampore were found to have had their bones deliberately fractured by archaic humans via hammering using stone tools, possibly for the purposes of extracting marrow.
The perfectly preserved sabre-toothed tiger cub was found with fur and perfectly preserved[/caption]
A picture of what sabre-toothed tigers would have looked like[/caption]
Source link
