The first Late Pleistocene coprolite of Crocuta crocuta spelaea from the North Sea

The Port of Rotterdam Authorities are extend-ing the Rotterdam harbour with 2,000 ha by the construction of land reclamation extending into the North Sea. This so-called Maasvlakte 2 (MV2) is made of sand that is dredged by trailing suction-hopper dredgers (TSHD) from a borrow area some 15 km West of the present Maasvlakte. The sediments are transported and subsequently deposited by ‘rainbowing’ or by pumping ashore through pipelines. The bor-row area where the sand is dredged originally had a depth of minus 22-23 m Chart Datum (CD) and the existing seabed is lowered to an average depth of minus 40 m CD. The dredged sediments have a Late Pleistocene age (Rijsdijk et al. 2005; Mol et al. 2006). The TSHDs dredge the sand and everything contained in it, with the exception of larger bones and other objects that are too large to pass through in the opening of the dragheads (approx. 40 cm). Several times per year the Port Authorities measure sediment parameters along the Dutch coast with a fishing vessel, the Eurocutter ‘Jade’, BRA7. On the last day of the measuring week the vessel is fitted out for fishing for palaeontological and archaeological remains with its trawl nets. Large amounts of fossils, mostly Mammuthus primigenius, but also Rangifer tarandus and Bos/Bison are thus recovered, and stored in the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The trip of 18 August 2010 yielded an as yet unknown object, here identified as a Crocuta crocuta spelaea coprolite.THE OBJECTThe coprolite was found at 52