A group of Greek and German archaeologists has discovered a 300,000 to 600,000 year old elephant butchering site near the modern-day city of Megalopolis, Greece.

The newly-discovered site, named Marathousa 1, is located in an open-cast coal mine, on what was once the shore of a shallow lake.

It is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Greece. The region is one of the most likely routes for human migration into Europe and also likely acted as a refuge for fauna, flora and human populations during glacial periods.

Marathousa 1 was discovered by archaeologists from the Ephorate of Paleoanthropology and Speleology (Greek Ministry of Culture) and the Paleoanthropology group at the University of Tübingen.

The dig team, led by Dr Eleni Panagopoulou of the Ephorate of Paleoanthropology and Speleology, unearthed stone flakes and flake fragments, core fragments, chunks, and a nearly complete skeleton of the straight-tusked elephant (Elephas antiquus) – an extinct species of elephant from Europe closely related to the modern Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) – at the site.

“Other faunal material from the site includes teeth, mandibular and postcranial remains of mammals, such as cervids and bovids, as well as micromammals, turtles and birds,” Dr Panagopoulou and co-authors wrote in a paper in the journal Antiquity.

The association of stone tools with the elephant remains, as well as the discovery of cutmarks on elephant bones, suggest that Marathousa 1 was an elephant butchering site.

Preliminary results suggest a Middle Pleistocene age (between 300,000 and 600,000 years ago).

“Marathousa 1 is an open-air site, situated on what would have been the shores of a paleo-lake, where elephant and other faunal remains are found in association with stone tools. The site probably testifies to hominin activities that pertain to the exploitation of animal resources,” the archaeologists said.

“This is the first Middle Pleistocene archaeological site ever to be excavated in mainland Greece and, moreover, the first Greek, open-air Lower Paleolithic site with both lithic and faunal remains to be examined by systematic excavation.”

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Eleni Panagopoulou et al. 2015. Marathousa 1: a new Middle Pleistocene archaeological site from Greece. Antiquity 89, 343; doi: 10.15184/aqy.2014.40