When it comes to popular travel destinations Greece's ancient history is a magnet for millions of tourists. Recently however the land's prehistory has been brought to the foreground thanks to some astounding finds unearthed in a comparatively unfrequented northern region of the mainland.

The important finds have placed the area of Grevena under the paleontological limelight, where relics of an elephant aged 200,000 years and of a mastodon that lived three million years ago were found.

The scientific team credited with the important find, a group of researchers from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki lead by palaeontologist Dr Evangelia Tsoukala, have been searching the mountains and streams of Grevena over the last decade for the remains of the largest animals ever to inhabit Greece.

The fossils of the eldest mastodon ( an extinct elephantine mammal), found in the area of Milia, belonged to a male aged three million years. Fittingly nicknamed Giant, this mammal lived during the Pliocene Epoch and boasted tusks of 4.4 metres in length, which was exactly what the researchers found at a hilltop! It must be noted that these tusks, weighing 400 kg each, are the largest ever found and they exceed those of contemporary African elephants by well over a metre.

The second mastodon - actually the first to be found in the mid-nineties in the area of Ambelia - is aged around 200,000 years. Its scientific name is Palaeoloxodon antiguus and it lived during the Plistocene Epoch. It was given the nickname of Astrakhan.

Although mastodons once had a worldwide distribution, making them quite common and often very well-preserved, this find exceeds expectations because the elephant jawbone is the most complete of its kind ever found in Europe. It is believed that these animals migrated to Greece in search of refuge from colder regions of northern Europe. As Tsoukala pointed out in an interview with Greek daily Kathimerini, "we suspect that there was a prolonged period of dry, arid weather that killed these animals".

In search of the past
The scientists prehistoric 'hunt' in Grevena was ignited by a fluke, when in 1990 student Dimitris Zissopoulos came across some fossilized bones on his grandfather's land. "Upon examining them," explains Tsoukala, "we realized that they were the bones of a prehistoric animal and we decided to conduct investigations in the area." There followed a decade characterized by both luck and 'detective' work.

Between 1991 and 1995 Tsoukala's team unearthed various fossils located at 585 metres of altitude at Ambelia, in the region where Astrakhan was subsequently found. Some years later the finding of the Giants relics brought sheer elation to researchers. "The fossilized tusks of the lower jaw, which disappeared during the evolution of the elephant species, and their excellent state of preservation, make this find unique in Europe," said Tsoukala.

Similar prehistoric finds have also been uncovered in other areas of Greece such as on the islands of Tilos, Lesvos, Samos and Evia as well as in mainland areas of Thessaloniki and east Attica prefectures.