Oxygen isotope analysis of pygmy hippo’s fossil bone and tooth apatite from Aghia Napa, Cyprus

Abstract

Dwarf elephants, pygmy hippos and various species of micromammals are some of the animals that lived on the island of Cyprus, 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. Fossil skeletal material of the pygmy hippopotamus Phanourios minor has been excavated from various fossiliferous sites in Cyprus, including Aghia Napa. Phanourios minor is considered to be the smallest of all known insular hippopotamuses. The animal is estimated to have measured about 76 cm (2.5 ft) tall and 121 cm (4.0 ft) long. During our study, material from Aghia Napa was used in order to attempt to reconstruct the palaeoclimatic conditions at the time this species lived on the island. The method used to determine the living conditions of this extinct species is the isotopic analysis of the bioapatite of bone and tooth samples.According to our results, and in comparison, to data from other similar studies, the average temperature in Cyprus was probably lower than 24 °C and in general the palaeoclimate (based on temperature) in Aghia Napa, Cyprus 12,000 years ago, was not very different to what it is currently, even though the age of the site coincides with the Younger dryas cold event. This has also been reported by other isotopic studies from Greece and the SE Mediterranean region for the specific era, according to which a cold climate is indicated, slowly passing on to a warmer period. According to today's data, we are now experiencing a warm period. The question that remains is how and to which extent, the SE Mediterranean region was actually affected by the cold event.