The only skull of Mammuthus trogontherii, approximately 350,000 years old, will be on display, starting Saturday, in the Hall of Honor at the Palace of Culture in Iasi.
The only skull of this species of mammoth preserved on Romanian territory will be exhibited at the Palace of Culture, after a careful restoration process based on the collaboration between paleontologist Bogdan Haiduc and the participation of restoration experts Ligia Teodor and Mihai Spiridon.
"The event crowns a long and laborious process of restoring this paleontological piece of great value, which will be integrated into the future exhibition of the History Museum, completing the thematic course of the evolution of species. We are waiting for you at the Palace of Culture to enjoy together this extraordinary journey that begins in the Ice Age and continues for approximately 350,000 years, crossing prehistory and then history, until the present day", said the manager of the Palace of Culture, Andrei Apreotesei.
In 1956-1957, during the exploitation of the quarry located on the southwestern edge of the village of Holboca, about 6-7 kilometers east of Ia?i, in the area called Izvorul Pandarului, the locals unearthed pieces of flint and remains of fossil fauna, which attracted the attention of archaeologists. The surveys carried out by Prof. Neculai Zaharia led to the identification in the lower terrace of Bahlui of a skull of Mammuthus trogotherii which quickly became known in the specialized literature due to its uniqueness, being the only skull of this species preserved on Romanian territory.
At the time of discovery, the cranial vault showed numerous damages, resting on its upper part, with the molars pointing upwards, and the tusks, oriented towards the northwest. The entire one has a length of 1.95 meters, and the one broken from ancient times has a length of approximately 40 centimeters. The curvature of the entire tusks is what also suggests belonging to this species, unlike others that are characterized by very curved or, on the contrary, rather straight tusks.
Mammuthus trogotherii or the steppe mammoth is a species that appeared and lived during the Middle Pleistocene, approximately 600,000-350,000 years ago. It is assumed that it appeared in Siberia and then spread to most of northern Eurasia. The species represented the first evolutionary stage of the steppe and tundra elephants, being an ancestor of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), which survived until approximately 10,000 years ago.
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