Astypalaia (Pleistocene of Greece)

Also known as Sygkairo

Where: Cyclades, Greece (36.6° N, 26.4° E: paleocoordinates 36.5° N, 26.3° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Pleistocene (2.6 - 0.0 Ma)

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; silty sandstone

• Endemic, the remote location of the island during the Pleistocene (the minimum distance from mainland dconsidering the current 60-120m isobaths was about 35-38 km; Fig. 1) is in strong favour of endemic status of the Astypalaia elephant.
• The containing rock is a consolidated littoral sandstone with clayey intercalations, characterised by the ubiquitous presence of plant-root ichnofossils (natural casts). The area around the excavation place was investigated extensively in 2015 by one of us (AA), without any discovery of additional mammalian fossils.

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by team of the Ephorate of PalaeoanthropologyeSpeleology (Ministry of Culture) in 2015

Collection methods: surface (in situ), mechanical,

• Material in collections of the Archaeological Museum of Astypalaia

Primary reference: A. Athanassiou, A. A. E. van der Geer, and G. A. Lyras. 2019. Pleistocene insular Proboscidea of the Eastern Mediterranean: A review and update. Quaternary Science Reviews 218:306-321 [E. Vlachos/E. Vlachos]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 202420: authorized by Evangelos Vlachos, entered by Evangelos Vlachos on 10.07.2019

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Mammalia
 Proboscidea - Elephantidae
"Palaeoloxodon sp." = Elephas
"Palaeoloxodon sp." = Elephas Linnaeus 1758 elephant
tusk (I2) part without catalogue number