Journal
JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE
Volume 33, Issue 8, Pages 924-933Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/jqs.3069
Keywords
food residue; Greenland Interstadial-11; late Pleistocene; microfossils; soil development
Funding
- Villum Fonden Young Investigator Programme [13151]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The molar of a giant deer, Megaloceros giganteus (Blumenbach, 1799), was discovered in sandy deposits of the North Sea, about 10 km west of the present shoreline of the Netherlands. Compacted masticated plant remains were preserved in the molar's deep folds. A palaeoecological analysis of these plant remains shows the complete dominance of pollen from Artemisia (sage) and other Asteraceae Tubuliflorae (Compositae), indicating that the animal foraged in a steppe environment, and may have preferred to eat Artemisia, which contain a high level of nutrients such as calcium and phosphorous components, which are important for antler building. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the plant remains are of mid-Weichselian age [38 570 (+300, -290) C-14 a BP, Greenland Interstadial-11]. This is the first study of the food choice of M. giganteus based on palaeoecological evidence. We hypothesize about links between the extirpation of M. giganteus at the onset of the Holocene in North-West Europe and the transition from a landscape with highly dynamic geomorphological processes and consequently prevalence of immature and nutrient-rich soils, to a less dynamic landscape with stable, leached and acidifying soils, and the decline of Artemisia and other calciphilous plants.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available