Late Pleistocene steppe lion Panthera leo spelaea (Goldfuss 1810) skeleton remains of the Upper Rhine Valley (SW Germany) and contributions to their sexual dimorphism, taphonomy and habitus

Abstract

The Upper Rhine Valley (SW Germany, Europe) has delivered 20,000 Late Pleistocene megafaunal remains found at gravel pit sites in the past decades and only 0.1% carnivore remains including a nearly complete lion skeleton of a small male Panthera leo spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) and also skeleton parts of two more grown-up to even older males from different localities, such as the additional isolated bones. Less than 1% of the bone material belongs to adolescent animals; cub material is completely absent. The material from the Upper Rhine Valley was compared with many caves and few open-air sites of central Europe, indicating strong sexual dimorphism in the last lions of Europe, but problematic remains in the glacial/interglacial size variation. Some lions are in the open air, and all cave localities are overlapping with hyena and cave bear den sites; in some cases, they seem to have been in the open-air hyena den sites in the Upper Rhine Valley. Proofs for hyena or other large carnivore scavenging activities on lion carcasses are cracked lower jaws and chewed long bones. The ‘steppe lion’ habitus is reconstructed by comparisons with French cave art figurations. Finally, a first overview of the steppe lion paleobiogeography in SW Germany is presented.