Ancient Elephant Skeleton Found in Arcadia, Greece

1/4. View of the excavation with part of the elephant skeleton [Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture]

Sep 11, 2015. The Ephoreia of Palaeoanthropology-Speleology of southern Greece along with the University of Tübingen discovered an ancient elephant skeleton in the area of Arcadia, with preliminary estimations determining it to be from 300,000 to 600,000 B.C., the Athens-Macedonian News Agency reports.

The bones were found at the Marathousa 1 site in the city of Megalopolis, Arcadia, in the Peloponnese. The site was first discovered in 2013 and has generated findings from the Lower Palaeolithic period, of the Old Stone Age.

3/4. Elephant bone in stratification in correlation with stone tools (circled) [Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture]

Along with the elephant bones, excavators found remnants of various fauna and flora organisms as well as stone objects. The excavation showed that the people of that time had constructed stone objects that were used to cut elephants. ANA-MPA notes that this is the only archaeological area in the Balkans with an elephant in “massacre position”, which is indicated by the discovery of the skeleton along with the stone objects that were used to cut it.  GreekReporter.com / Link 2