Barbary Macaque Tooth Discovery in Germany Reveals Ancient European Range
A research team from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Leiden University has discovered a 300,000-year-old Barbary macaque tooth in Schöningen, Lower Saxony, Germany. This finding represents the northernmost evidence of this primate species in continental Europe. Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) are currently the only extant macaque species native to North Africa, with a small population also in Gibraltar. All other macaque species reside in Asia. The discovered tooth is a deciduous molar from an approximately one-year-old macaque, closely related to the modern Barbary macaque. The Schöningen site, renowned for its well-preserved Paleolithic remains, indicates that the landscape 310,000 years ago was an open woodland with birch and pine, with average summer and winter temperatures similar to today, though winters were at least one degree Celsius colder, suggesting a more continental climate. This discovery significantly expands the known hi...
