In the field season July/August 2008 I joined the team of Professor Dr Evangelia Tsoukala (Aristotle University, Thessoloniki, Greece) and Dick Mol (research associate Rotterdam Museum of Natural History, The Netherlands) again. The goal of the team was to continue several research projects: The 1 million years old site of Kalamoto with Hippopotamus, Mammuthus, extinct horses and rhino’s, the world renowned site of Milia with the mastodon species Mammut borsoni (the longest tusks ever discovered in the world of a proboscidean) of about 3 million years old and finally to restore the skull fragment of the Kaloneri Elephant, a straight-tusked elephant of the last interglacial, around 125.000 years old. This Elephas antiquus was excavated by the team headed by Evangelia Tsoukala two years ago and should be displayed in the new town hall of Kaloneri, not far from Milia.

In Milia, the entire team achieved the new design of the museum with the Milia fauna (mastodons, tapirs, rhino’s, hipparion (three-toed horses), antelopes, bovids and so on) at an extremely low budget. They did a great job, is my opinion. Look at the pictures below.

As a photographer, I felt very honoured to have the opportunity to follow this team of enthusiastic scientists, students, lectures, laboratory employees and local people like sheppard’s and to take as many pictures as possible. Pictures for leisure, but also serious scientific pictures and the beautiful landscapes and little villages of Macedonia. It was a great pleasure for me to see how a skull of a three million years old extinct species of rhino, after its discovery by sheep (!!!), was excavated by Evangelia Tsoukala and Wilrie van Logchem who also is a member of the scientific Milia team.