Aurochs roamed along the SW coast of Andalusia (Spain) during Late Pleistocene.

In the Iberian Peninsula the fossil record of artiodactyls spans over 53 million years. During the Pleistocene, wild cattle species such as Bison and especially Bos became common. In Late Pleistocene, the aurochs (Bos primigenius) was widespread and the only bovine living along the large river valleys of southern Iberia. Although commonly found in fossil sites and especially in cave bone assemblages, the trace fossil record of aurochs was known worldwide only from the Holocene. Large bovine and roe deer/caprine tracks were found in at least five horizons of the early Late Pleistocene (MIS 5) beach and eolian deposits of Cape Trafalgar (Cadiz Province, South of Spain). The large bovine tracks are formally described as Bovinichnus uripeda igen. et isp. nov. and compared with the record of aurochs tracks, large red deer tracks and steppe bison biogeographical distribution in Iberia. Aurochs were the most likely producers of the newly described Trafalgar Trampled Surface (TTS) and some of the large artiodactyl tracks in the Matalascañas Trampled Surface, representing the oldest aurochs track record known. This new evidence, together with comparisons with the record of possible aurochs tracks in the Mid-Late Pleistocene coastal deposits from the Asperillo cliff section in Matalascañas (Huelva Province, SW Spain) and bone assemblages known in Gibraltar, point to a recurrent use of the coastal habitat by these large artiodactyls in SW Iberia.

Molecular identification and geographic origin of a post-Medieval elephant finding from southwestern Portugal using high-throughput sequencing.

Molecular species identification plays a crucial role in archaeology and palaeontology, especially when diagnostic morphological characters are unavailable. Molecular markers have been used in forensic science to trace the geographic origin of wildlife products, such as ivory. So far, only a few studies have applied genetic methods to both identify the species and circumscribe the provenance of historic wildlife trade material. Here, by combining ancient DNA methods and genome skimming on a historical elephantid tooth found in southwestern Portugal, we aimed to identify its species, infer its placement in the elephantid phylogenetic tree, and triangulate its geographic origin. According to our results the specimen dates back to the eighteenth century CE and belongs to a female African forest elephant (non-hybrid Loxodonta cyclotis individual) geographically originated from west-west-central Africa, from areas where one of the four major mitochondrial clades of L. cyclotis is distributed. Historical evidence supports our inference, pointing out that the tooth should be considered as post-Medieval raw ivory trade material between West Africa and Portugal. Our study provides a comprehensive approach to study historical products and artefacts using archaeogenetics and contributes towards enlightening cultural and biological historical aspects of ivory trade in western Europe.