There was a mammoth hiding in the wine cellar

While renovating an old wine cellar in Gobelsburg, Austria, local winemaker Andreas Pernerstorfer discovered large bones that prompted him to contact experts. The find turned out to contain 30,000 to 40,000-year-old mammoth remains. It is the most important mammoth bone find in Austria for more than a century and the first to be investigated using modern methods.

After the announcement of the find, Thomas Einwögerer and Hannah Parow-Souchon from the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI) of the Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) were called to the site. They excavated several densely stacked layers of bones belonging to at least three different mammoths. In addition to the bones, stone artefacts and charcoal remains from the Stone Age were also discovered, suggesting that the area was inhabited by humans many thousands of years ago: "We know that people hunted mammoths, but we still know so little about how they hunted them," Parow-Souchon said.

The last similar discovery in Austria was made near the current site: 150 years ago, a "powerful bone layer and cultural layers with flint artifacts, decorative fossils and charcoal were also discovered in a neighboring wine cellar. During excavation, the affected cellars were completely cleared and other comparable sites in Austria were mostly excavatedat least 100 years ago and are largely lost to modern research," the OeAW report said.

"It is rare for mammoths to have such a dense skeletal layer. This is the first time we have been able to explore something like this in Austria using modern means," explained the head of the research funded by the Federal Heritage Office and the state of Lower Austria. "In recent years, the remains of individual mammoths have occasionally been found, for example during road construction work, but the Gobelsburg assemblage stands out," Parow-Souchon added.

The discovery opens the door for further archaeological research in and around Gobelsburg. Archaeologists hope to be able to find additional artifacts and remains that could provide an even more detailed picture of life in the area during the Stone Age. The bones will now undergo a thorough examination and analysis at the Natural History Museum in Vienna. The analyses may provide new insights into how these large mammals lived, how they were hunted and what their role was in the ecosystem at the time.

Video

Roman Nemec

Sources: science.orf.at, thehistoryblog.com, oeaw.ac.at

mammoth bone retrieval and research

in the basement

detail of the excavation