An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the UB Faculty of Geology and Geophysics and from the Buzău County Museum discovered skeleton remains in the Buzău Valley, which form part of a “graveyard of mammoths”

The discoveries and osteological analyses of bone fragments from different types of mammoths which appear to have lived 2 million years ago in the Buzău River Valley determine the geologists, teaching staff and researchers of the UB Faculty of Geology and Geophysics and the experts of the Buzău County Museum to continue their research, hoping that the area may prove to be a “mammoth graveyard”.

An interdisciplinary team, facing a challenge: ample osteological analyses

Recently, following the random finding of large skeleton remains on the shore of the Buzău River, in the area of Stăncești, researchers and teaching staff from the  UB Faculty of Geology and Geophysics were co-opted by specialists from the Buzău County Museum to try to identify mammoth fossils.

Following osteological analyses, the team of researchers came to the conclusion that the fossils – isolated teeth and shoulder blade fragments – belong to a few mammoth individuals (Mammuthus meridionalis).

The team researching the findings includes lecturer Ștefan Vasile, PhD, teaching staff at the UB Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, researcher who studies fossil vertebrates, participating to the description of a series of fossil mammoth remains discovered on the territory of Teleorman County, in Mavrodin, Peretu, Brebina, Albești and in Ilfov, in Copăceni.

The first results of the scientific research, presented at a broad scientific event

 Other remains coming from the same species, south mammoth, discovered nearby, in the same area of the Buzău River, were identified in the collection of the Buzău County Museum, these pieces never having been mentioned in specialty literature. Considering the fact that such fossils have been discovered repeatedly in the same area, the proximity of the Buzău County presents a high potential to further provide such fragments, thus enabling researchers to plan detailed field researches in this area which, up the moment of these discoveries, represented a white area on the map of sites containing remains of quaternary vertebrates in Romania.

The first results of the scientific researches done on the vertebrate fossils remains which are in the collection of the Buzău County Museum have been presented during the 22^nd edition of the Buzău County Museum scientific communication session, which took place between May 9^th – 11^th 2024.

Mammoths, some of the largest terrestrial mammals that lived on the European territory

One of the largest terrestrial mammals that lived on the territory of Europe, mammoths represent a group of extinct Proboscideans, part of the Elephantidae family, out of which only three species are still alive today, two of African elephants and one of Indian elephants. The entire group originates from the territory of Africa, from where, approximately 3.2 million years ago, comes the oldest species also met in Europe: Mammuthus rumanus.

Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), photo source: Shutterstock

The species is described on the territory of Romania a century ago by paleontologist Sabba Ștefănescu, based on a molar discovered in the Tulucești, Galați County. Through the years, as  a consequence of the climate changes that influenced the food they had available, three new species appeared, largely found in Eurasia and North America, which succeeded each other, replacing one another: Mammuthus meridionalis (South mammoth), characteristic to the 2.5 million – 800.000 years time frame, adapted to a warm climate; Mammuthus trogontherii (steppe mammoth), common in Europe around 800.000 –  175.000 years ago, adapted to a temperate climate; and Mammuthus primigenius (the woolly mammoth), which lived in Europe 175.000 years to 12.000 years ago.

The four species of mammoths mentioned were also present on the territory of Romania, fossil mammoth remains being mentioned in the scientific literature in over 200 places. The south mammoth is most commonly met in the south of our country, numerous fossil parts being discovered in the counties of Ilfov, Giurgiu, Teleorman, Argeș, Olt and Dolj. The greatest number of pieces attributed to the wooly mammoth were discovered in Transilvania, but numerous fossils were also found on the current territory of Bucharest. The steppe mammoth comes across much less often, although researchers even discovered almost full skeletons, such as the one found in Codreni, Călărași county.

South mammoth mandible (Mammuthus meridionalis) from the collection of the Buzău County Museum, currently exhibited at the Amber Museum in Colți

The scientific collection of the Faculty of Geology and Geophysics contains hundreds of mammoth fossil parts

The scientific collection of the Faculty of Geology and Geophysics contains over  200 mammoth fossil pieces, including the molar used to first describe the Mammuthus rumanus species to the world, as well as south mammoth molars discovered particularly in the Teleorman and Giurgiu counties, or woolly mammoth molars from the area of Bucharest (particularly the north region, in the neighborhoods Colentina, Floreasca and Bucureștii Noi). Most of the pieces are either isolated teeth or fragments of a long bone.

The “mammoth graveyard”, a notion coming from popular culture

The cases of more important mammoth fossil bone findings, either as skeletons more or less compete, or several pieces coming from different individuals, brought together by rivers which transported and covered them in sediments, or in some cases, by the prehistoric man who hunted wooly mammoths, are far less common.

Researchers from Buzău County Museum (PhD Daniel Garvăn, to the right) and from the Faculty of Geology and Geophysics (lecturer Ștefan Vasile, PhD, to the left of the image) during field research done on the Buzău River Valley

For this reason, more significant mammoth remains findings have always triggered a special interest, to the point that popular culture created the notion of “mammoth graveyard”, with a current correspondent  of elephant graveyard – a place where past mammoths or present elephants retreat to die, when they feel their end is close. Such a concept, however, is not supported by scientific evidence neither for elephants nor for mammoths, the accumulation of several skeleton pieces in one place being a natural occurrence, which is related to the flowing and sediment depositing system of rivers, or anthropic, in the case of mammoth hunting tribes.

Lecturer Ștefan Vasile in 2020, during the excavations of mammoth remains in the south of Romania, pieces currently under study which will represent the subject of future presentations

*Original photo: Sabba Ștefănescu, based on a molar discovered in Tulucești, Galați county