A New Species of Fallow Deer Dama pontica sp. nov. (Artiodactyla, Cervidae) from the Lower Pleistocene of Taurida Cave in the Crimea and the Early History of the Genus Dama

A new species of fallow deer Dama pontica is described from the late Early Pleistocene of Taurida Cave in the Crimea. The antlers of this medium-sized deer had a small first tine near the burr and a primitively narrow proximal fan-shaped palmation. The morphology of D. pontica sp. nov. suggests that this species belongs to a phylogenetic branch of the modern Mesopotamian (Persian, or Iranian) fallow deer, D. mesopotamica (Brooke, 1875). The fossil remains of Dama from the Taurida Cave are the oldest in Europe. According to biochronological data, the age of the Taurida fauna is estimated at 1.8–1.5 Ma. The find indicates that the divergence of the European and Mesopotamian branches of fallow deer occurred no later than 1.5 Ma. Hypotheses about the origin of Dama (s.s.) from ‘Pseudodama’ at the Early–Middle Pleistocene boundary require revision.