The Madrid City Council has found remains of a primitive elephant cemetery during the construction of the new firefighting logistics center that the City Council is building in the La Atalayuela industrial estate, in the Villa de Vallecas district.
Specifically, large fossil remains have been found corresponding to eight partially complete specimens of the species Gomphotherium angustidens, from which complete jaws, tusks, femurs, humeri and hips have been recovered.
As detailed by the Consistory in a statement, it is a distant ancestor of modern African elephants that lived in the area along with giant tortoises, large carnivores and ancestors of today's horses, deer and wild boars.
Due to a period of aridity and decreased temperatures that occurred about 14 million years ago, a herd of elephants took refuge in that area due to the existence of a source of food and water, where part of said herd would die due to the lack of food. Subsequently, a large flood covered the remains of the carcasses, which allowed them to be preserved and fossilized.
This extinct species of elephant was about five meters long by three meters high and could reach a weight of about 2.5 tons. It had four fangs: two upper ones, divergent and curved downwards, and two lower ones, somewhat shorter. Likewise, it is estimated that its trunk was shorter than that of modern elephants.
Gomphotherium angustidens lived during the early and middle Miocene, between 16 and five million years ago, in central and southern Europe, the Arabian Peninsula and northeastern Africa, from Tunisia to Kenya. In the Iberian Peninsula, remains of this species have been found in nearby places such as Somosaguas and Carpetana, in Madrid, or in the Zaragoza town of Villafeliche.
At the time from which these animals date, hominids had not even appeared in Europe yet, something that is not known to have happened until around 1.4 million years ago in Atapuerca.
The excavation, in which a team of eight paleontologists and archaeologists led by Alessandro Giusto and Jorge Morín participated, began in March and lasted until August, covering an approximate area of 800 square meters.
The City Council has highlighted that the work represents "an important milestone not only for the information obtained, but also for the heritage recovered." The fossils have been deposited in the Regional Archaeological Museum of the Community of Madrid, in Alcalá de Henares, where they will be preserved. Likewise, some of the specimens have been loaned to the National Museum of Natural Sciences, where they are being studied in detail.
