Thionville. The day the skull of a prehistoric mega-eros was discovered

If you go to visit the Tour aux Puces museum in Thionville, you will see that it devotes a showcase to Quaternary fauna in a glacial climate. There is a mammoth tusk and molars, reindeer teeth and antlers, and a megaceros skull. The latter was discovered in 1966 in Gavisse. We tell you the circumstances of this unusual find, thanks to the archives service of the Republican Lorrain.

On October 12, 1966, in a sand pit in Gavisse, at the wheel of his excavator, Marcel Halter was engaged in various extraction works, when he felt resistance under the shovel of his excavator. He stops the machine and goes to inquire about the nature of the obstacle. He can’t believe his eyes! At his feet, more than 2.5 meters deep, he sees the skull of an animal as bizarre as it is unknown.

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A “Megaloceros giganteus” from the Paleolithic

With great care, he lifts the skull consisting only of the upper jaw of an animal which must have been very large. About 50 cm long, this jaw, very well preserved, still has all its teeth, in a double row. The jaw continues with a horn, the second not being found. Although broken, this horn measures 70 cm and has a diameter of 7 to 8 cm. It has a fork which suggests that the animal had horns with several branches. The skull is placed in a construction hut belonging to the former mayor of Gavisse, before passing into the hands of experts.

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Later, they will put a name on the animal: a “Megaloceros giganteus” from the Paleolithic, also called the peat bog deer. The woods of this mega-eros reached a wingspan of 3.50 m. Megaceros were larger than other living deer species. They measured 2.10 m at the withers and almost 3 m in length, weighing 600 to 800 kilos for males. Specialists believe that the species became extinct precisely because of the exaggerated development of its antlers.

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