Four elephantid fossil bones including the first lumber vertebra and two ribs, one fossil shell and one fossil wood fragment were investigated. These fossils have been stored in Akita Prefectural Museum since 2017. According to the fossil finder, they were collected from the waste soil in the construction site prior to the official excavation of the “Hamacho specimen” of
Palaeoloxodon naumanni (Elephantinae), which was conducted in 1976 at a subway construction site 22 m below ground level near Hamacho 2-chome, Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo.
Comparing with the “Hamacho specimen” which has been stored in Hachioji City, the size and the state of preservation was equal, and also the first lumbar vertebra were well articulated with the 20th thoracic and the 2nd lumbar vertebrae of the “Hamacho specimen”. These results indicated that these fossil bones were parts of a skeleton of “Hamacho specimen”.
The pollen analysis of the sediment left inside the fossil shell (
Saxidomus purpurata), even though the amount of extracted pollen was low, showed that the environment at the time was estimated to be an intermediate-temperate forests, in which deciduous broad-leaved trees with temperate coniferous trees such as
Abies and
Tsuga grow around wetlands and rivers. The fossil wood was identified as genus Celtis (Family Cannabaceae) based on the microscopic structure. This vegetation is consistent with the habitat of the
P. naumanni, which has been reported previously.
On the other hand, the horizon of the “Hamacho specimen” has been considered to be the Upper Tokyo Formation, since the underlying continuous sand and gravel layer with a thickness of more than 5m was regarded as the Tokyo gravel Formation, and the alluviums were deposited immediately above it. However, recent studies reported that the gravel beds also exist under the Upper Tokyo Formation, not only at the bottom of that. This suggests that the horizon of the “Hamacho specimen” should be re-examined in the future.
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