Stable Isotopic studies of the herbivorous mammals from the Marginal Ganga Plain, India: implication for the palaeo‐environmental reconstruction

Abstract

The reconstruction of palaeo‐vegetation and dietary habitat from vertebrate molar fragments from the Marginal Ganga plains (MGP) are rare. This study from moderately preserved fossil dentitions of herbivorous mammals collected from the two stratigraphic sections of the MGP presents carbon and oxygen isotope compositions, and provides dietary habits of large mammals in the northern Indian Alluvial tract during the Late Pleistocene. Elephas namadicus recovered from the channelized gravel litho‐unit of the Jigni section, previously dated to be 56 ± 5 ka dominantly had a C4 dietary system. It exhibits a swampy grassland landscape rather than a savannah‐type forest landscape. Bovini fossil specimens recovered from the upper part of channelized gravel litho‐unit dated between 54 ± 10 and 51 ± 5 ka, also favour a C4 dietary system suggesting pure grazers living in open grassland habitat.