The Proboscidea of the Early Villafranchian site of Milia (Grevena, Macedonia, Greece)

Abstract

Two different species of Early Villafranchian proboscideans were contemporaneous in Milia (Grevena, Western Macedonia, Greece): the large zygodont, Borson's mastodon, Mammut borsoni (Hays, 1834), and the smaller gomphothere, the mastodon of Auvergne, Anancus arvernensis (Croizet et Jobert, 1828), the former being predominant. Since 1996 partial skeletons and a large number of isolated skeletal elements of the zygodonts have been excavated from Aliakmon River sand deposits in Milia. The skeletons include substantial portions of the cranium with left and right molars (M2, M3); two complete pairs of the longest upper tusks ever recorded in the world (4.39 m and 5.02 m) and the most complete mandible in Europe, with the two entire lower tusks in anatomical position, as well as two almost-complete mandibles with dentition (m2 + m3); and post-cranials. These partial skeletons represent very robust male individuals in the prime of their life at time of death. In this paper, we describe a new partial skeleton and we discuss the evolutionary position of the specimens among mammutids, the stratigraphy and the paleoenvironment. The enriched Milia zygodont material is compared with other European specimens in order to get a better understanding of its extinction.