“Discover the Secrets of the Ice Age: Archaeologists in Austria Unearth a 25,000-Year-Old Mammoth Graveyard!”
The Mammoth Bones Discovered In Austria
According to a press release from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), the mammoth discovery was made at the Langmannersdorf an der Perschling site, located between St. Pölten and Tulln in Lower Austria. Mammoth remains have been found here before, and archaeologists were thrilled to uncover the bones of more mammoths during their most recent excavation.
ÖAW-ÖAI/Marc HändelArchaeologists found two groups of mammoth bones about 50 feet apart.
The mammoth remains, which are some 25,000 years old, were found in two zones roughly 50 feet (15 meters) apart. The bones were stacked in layers, and archaeologists found stone tools in between the two zones.
As the archaeologists discovered, the two zones seemed to serve different purposes. In one, bones from at least two separate mammoths showed signs of dismemberment. In the other, the bones of at least three mammoths, including “complete and fragmented tusks,” were discovered, suggesting that the area was used to process the mammoths’ ivory.
“In this time period 25,000 years ago ivory was mainly used for the production of armatures (ivory points) and tools,” Marc Händel of the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences told All That’s Interesting in an email. “There was also production of adornments but this was by far not as common as a few thousand years earlier in the preceding Gravettian.”
ÖAW-ÖAI/Marc HändelArchaeologists examining a mammoth tusk at the site. They believe that prehistoric hunters processed ivory here.
In the press release, he continued: “The fact that we are not just finding individual bones here, but intensively used areas in which several animals were processed, has more than exceeded our expectations.”
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