An Austrian man renovating his wine cellar has made an extraordinary discovery: the remains of prehistoric mammoths.
Andreas Pernerstorfer, a winemaker from Gobelsburg in the Krems district, stumbled upon several large bones buried deep in his cellar. The Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) has hailed the find as an “archaeological sensation.”
Pernerstorfer initially thought he had unearthed a piece of wood left by his grandfather. “I thought it was just a piece of wood left by my grandfather. But then I dug it out a bit and remembered that my grandfather had found teeth in the past. I immediately thought it was a mammoth,” he told the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF).
Upon reporting the discovery, authorities identified the bones as belonging to at least three Stone Age mammoths. Excavations by the Austrian Archaeological Institute have been ongoing since mid-May.
Archaeologists Thomas Einwögerer and Hannah Parow-Souchon determined that stone artifacts and charcoal found at the site date the bones to between 30,000 and 40,000 years old. This significant discovery is comparable to one made 150 years ago in the same district.
“In the previous excavation, the cellars were completely cleared out. Other similar sites in Austria and neighboring countries were mostly excavated over a century ago and are largely lost to modern research,” the Institute said in a statement.
Parow-Souchon emphasized the importance of this find: “It is the first time we’ve been able to investigate such a find in Austria using modern methods.” The discovery sheds light on the hunting practices of Stone Age humans. “We know that humans hunted mammoths, but we still know very little about how they did it,” she added.
Researchers believe the mammoths might have died at the site, possibly trapped by humans. Once the excavation is complete, the bones will be transported to the Vienna Museum of Natural History for further study.
