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An enormous fossil skull found in India’s Kashmir valley a long time in the past belongs to an unknown “straight-tusked” extinct elephant species, scientists say.
The skull, together with practically 90 stone instruments utilized by prehistoric people, was uncovered in late 2000 by researchers led by Ghulam Bhat from the University of Jammu.
A brand new evaluation of the fossil, printed in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, reveals that it belonged to a bunch of straight-tusked elephants known as Palaeoloxodon, elevating additional questions on their extinction.
These had been amongst the largest land mammals that ever lived, rising to round 4 metres tall at the shoulder and weighing about 10 tonnes as adults.
There are indicators of breakage and flaking of the elephant bones, suggesting their exploitation by people. But researchers couldn’t discover any proof of the beast having been hunted down or butchered.
“This kind of association of stone tools with humanly modified elephant remains is rare,” researchers say.
This fossil seems to vary from different Palaeoloxodon skulls found in India, missing a attribute thickened, forward-projecting crest at its roof.
“From the size, the wisdom teeth and a few other telltale features of the skull, it is evident the animal was a majestic bull elephant in the prime of its life,” research co-author Steven Zhang mentioned in an announcement.
“But the lack of a well-developed skull crest, particularly in comparison with other mature male skulls from Europe and India, tells us we have a different species on our hands here.”
The discovery might assist resolve one other thriller about the elephant household tree. Researchers say the Kashmir elephant’s skull options appear just like a uncommon skull unearthed in Turkmenistan in the Nineteen Fifties which too lacks a outstanding crest at the skull roof regardless of its different options being “highly similar” to already identified European species.
When the Turkmenistan skull was found, scientists thought it might merely be an aberrant particular person of the European species Pantiquus.
Analysis of the 87 stone instruments found buried alongside the elephant stays exhibits that the Kashmir skull dates to the Middle Pleistocene interval 300,000–400,000 years in the past, placing it in an analogous timeline to the Turkmenistan fossil.
“With the Kashmir skull added to the mix, it becomes clear now that the two specimens can be theorised to represent a distinct species that we previous knew very little about, with a broad distribution from Central Asia to the northern Indian subcontinent,” Advait Jukar, one other of the newest research’s authors, mentioned.
“This new specimen from Kashmir provides a strong case for a Middle Pleistocene species of Palaeoloxodon in Central and South Asia,” the research says.
The Palaeoloxodon genus first developed in Africa 1,000,000 years in the past, possessing a slender, convex brow and underdeveloped skull crest. These elephants, whose fossils have been found in Europe and India, had a really huge, flattened brow, and sometimes a thick crest that jutted ahead from the skull’s roof.
P turkmenicus with its huge, flat brow and a faint skull crest might symbolize a lacking hyperlink that fills a niche in our understanding of elephant evolution, scientists say.
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