Hippos romped about 30,000 years ago in the Rhine: That is the finding of an interdisciplinary research team that evaluated hundreds of bone finds as part of the project "Ice Age Window Upper Rhine Rift", as the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim announced on Wednesday.
What is spectacular about the research result is the point in time when “Hippopotamus amphibius” was still living in the region.
Mannheim - The current state of knowledge was that the thermophilic species became extinct here at the end of the last warm period 116,000 years ago.
According to the investigations of the experts at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums, the Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry and the University of Potsdam, this must be revised.
Using the radiocarbon method, they found out that hippos lived in the Upper Rhine area between 48,000 and 30,000 years before our time.
“So the hippopotamus is a real Ice Age inhabitant on the Rhine.
This shows that the animals were able to adapt well to the corresponding temperatures and environmental conditions in the cold-age Upper Rhine Rift, ”explained Museum Director General Wilfried Rosendahl in Mannheim.
The Upper Rhine Graben stretches from Basel to Frankfurt.
dpa