Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropolgy, Leipzig, Germany
Eleftheria Palkopoulou
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Sina Baleka
Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Department for Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Mathias Stiller
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropolgy, Leipzig, Germany
Department of Chemistry, University of York, York, United Kingdom
Kurt W Alt
Center of Natural and Cultural History of Man, Danube Private University, Krems-Stein, Austria; Department of Biomedical Engineering and Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science, Basel University, Basel, Switzerland
Yasuko Ishida
Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, United States
Dietrich Mania
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt with State Museum of Prehistory, Halle, Germany
Swapan Mallick
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Tom Meijer
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, Netherlands
Harald Meller
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt with State Museum of Prehistory, Halle, Germany
Sarah Nagel
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropolgy, Leipzig, Germany
Birgit Nickel
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropolgy, Leipzig, Germany
Sven Ostritz
Thüringisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Weimar, Germany
Nadin Rohland
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Karol Schauer
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt with State Museum of Prehistory, Halle, Germany
Tim Schüler
Thüringisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Weimar, Germany
Alfred L Roca
Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, United States
David Reich
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, United States; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Beth Shapiro
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, United States
Michael Hofreiter
Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Department for Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
The straight-tusked elephants Palaeoloxodon spp. were widespread across Eurasia during the Pleistocene. Phylogenetic reconstructions using morphological traits have grouped them with Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), and many paleontologists place Palaeoloxodon within Elephas. Here, we report the recovery of full mitochondrial genomes from four and partial nuclear genomes from two P. antiquus fossils. These fossils were collected at two sites in Germany, Neumark-Nord and Weimar-Ehringsdorf, and likely date to interglacial periods ~120 and ~244 thousand years ago, respectively. Unexpectedly, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses suggest that P. antiquus was a close relative of extant African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis). Species previously referred to Palaeoloxodon are thus most parsimoniously explained as having diverged from the lineage of Loxodonta, indicating that Loxodonta has not been constrained to Africa. Our results demonstrate that the current picture of elephant evolution is in need of substantial revision.
