The date : 1.4 million yr ago . The place : a turgid basin surrounded by mountains in southern Spain . An unsuspecting mammoth walks lento over the land . Four meters ( 13 feet ) magniloquent and 11 tonnes heavy , she does n’t worry too much about predators . That is , until her feet part sinking in the ground . Her huge mass compare to small foot surface is working against her as she settle deeper into the unexpectedquicksand . ineffectual to escape , she becomes loose prey . Ready to attack are two unlikely commensal : gianthyenasand humans .
This is the story told by the findings at the modish archaeological dig near Orce , on the edge of the Guadix - Baza Depression . This situation is copious in fossilized clay of human and animal bodily process from the Pleistocene . It is the site where , to this escort , theoldest hominin fossilin Western Europe has been feel . It ’s a tooth and it ’s 1 million years old .
It is also where archaeologists have uncovered the stiff of many magnanimous herbivores along withmammoths : gianthippos(Hippopotamus antiquus ) , giant deer ( Praemegaceros cf . verticornis ) , giant two - tusk rhinos ( Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis ) – you get the depiction . That ’s how it amaze the sinister nickname " elephant necropolis " .
The fossil of a southern mammoth (Mammuthus meridionalis) was found surrounded by 34 hyena coprolites.Image credit: Palmqvist et al, Journal of Iberian Geology 2024 (CC BY 4.0); cropped by IFLScience
On the bones of these elephantine herbivores there are stigma leave by the teeth of scavenging carnivore , and by the tools human root used to reach the marrow in spite of appearance . How humans got approach to these big quarry was still unreadable .
A late study reported an analysis of the composition of the rock layer in this land site and found that the upper archaeological levels were composed of two third sand and one third clay .
" These fine sand sediments , fix close to the paleolake that was in the region , would also contain more or less saline water , a salmagundi that explain that they could have mold as quicksand , where large creature were ensnare , " said Paul Palmqvist and María Patrocinio Espigares , the University of Málaga scientists leading the subject field , in astatement .
This field of study suggests opportunistic behavior on the part of both human and hyenas , attacking the of course trapped herbivores that they were otherwise unlikely to be able to hunt . The identity of the elephantine hyena ( Pachycrocuta brevirostris ) that dined on the mammoth was cave in away by the excreta that they left at the web site . In case you ever marvel , there is a name forfossilized tail , and it ’s " coprolites " .
This study is published in theJournal of Iberian Geology .
