Multi-disciplinary study of a late Pleistocene woolly rhinoceros found in the Pannonian Basin and implications for the contemporaneous palaeoenvironment

Abstract

Excavation campaigns conducted at the Pécel-Kis hársas site (Hungary) between 2014 and 2017 yielded the remains of a mature female woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and six lithic artefacts. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the rhinoceros died ca. 20.4k cal a bp, at the very end of the Last Glacial Maximum and, considering the position of the artefacts when found, it was probably killed by Epigravettian hunters. Based on dental analyses of the specimen, a vigorous lichen- (and possibly moss-)consuming diet could be inferred for the end of the animal's lifetime. Based on Sr results, we can exclude the possibility of long-range migration. In accordance with the optimum environmental demands of the foraging lichen, the low δ¹⁸O value of osseous material implies a relatively cold contemporaneous climate with a calculated mean annual air temperature of around 0.7 °C. Meanwhile, the extremely low δ¹⁵N value may have resulted from the proximity of the discontinuous permafrost zone and some intensive soil dislocation. Consequently, poor vegetation and an open, tundra-like habitat can be assumed to have been dominant at the site at that time, which is also supported by palaeoenvironmental modeling experiments.