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The find prompted immediate involvement from the Austrian Archaeological Institute to prevent damage or loss of contextual information.<\/p>\n
The work was led by Thomas Einw\u00f6gerer at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences<\/a>, whose research focuses on Ice Age archaeology and early human behavior.<\/p>\n His team began controlled excavation in mid May, carefully removing sediment layers to document bone placement and associated materials.<\/p>\n Layers of mammoth bones<\/p>\n Several tightly packed layers of skeletal material were exposed beneath the cellar floor during excavation.<\/p>\n Archaeologists identified bones from at least three individual animals based on size differences and repeated skeletal elements<\/a>.<\/p>\n Such dense accumulations are uncommon, especially when preserved intact beneath a modern structure.<\/p>\n The remains were dated using associated stone tools and charcoal recovered from the same sediment layers.<\/p>\n These materials indicate human activity during the Upper Paleolithic period, roughly 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.<\/p>\n Charcoal provides radiocarbon dating<\/a>, a method measuring radioactive carbon decay to estimate organic material age.<\/p>\n Cellar site stratigraphy, reading soil layers to track time order, helps separate a single event from bones mixed later.<\/p>\n Meet the mammoths<\/p>\n The discovery connects to a broader picture of Ice Age ecosystems across Europe. Woolly mammoths, Mammuthus primigenius, were adapted to cold climates with thick fur and large fat reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n These animals coexisted with early modern humans during periods of rapid climate fluctuation.<\/p>\n A large dataset<\/a> of mammoth radiocarbon dates mapped changing European ranges, and the authors linked movement to climate and people.<\/p>\n The mammoth bones discovery offers scientists a chance to apply modern excavation techniques unavailable during earlier finds.<\/p>\n Comparable mammoth bone layers in Austria were last excavated about 150 years ago, long before careful stratigraphic methods became standard.<\/p>\n Many older sites were cleared quickly, permanently removing clues about how humans interacted with mammoths.<\/p>\n Killed by humans<\/p>\n The mammoth<\/a> bones discovery includes stone artifacts found directly alongside the skeletal remains.<\/p>\n These tools suggest deliberate human presence rather than a natural accumulation caused by floods or scavengers.<\/p>\n The proximity raises questions about whether the animals were hunted, trapped, or processed at the site.<\/p>\n The discovery invites a harder question: what tactics let people kill animals that outweighed them?<\/p>\n Ice Age hunters often relied on teamwork, spears, and landscape pinch points, because a wound can make an animal slow.<\/p>\n Use-wear analysis<\/a>, reading tiny chips and polish on stone edges, linked many tools to thrown weapons.<\/p>\n The find team uses careful mapping, samples, and lab tests to keep the bones tied to place.\u00a0<\/p>\n Photogrammetry, building measurements from overlapping photos, can record bone positions before lifting, even in tight cellar spaces.<\/p>\n It marks the first opportunity in Austria to investigate such a dense mammoth<\/a> bone layer using modern archaeological methods, allowing precise documentation of bone placement and surrounding sediments.<\/p>\n The mammoth bones discovery may represent the location where the animals actually died.<\/p>\n Similar mammoth bone concentrations appear at Doln\u00ed V\u011bstonice and Krak\u00f3w Spadzista, and researchers often compare layers and toolkits between sites.<\/p>\n Natural traps can include steep gullies or muddy banks, because heavy animals can lose footing and get stuck.<\/p>\n Lessons from mammoth bones<\/p>\n The mammoth<\/a> find will move from the cellar to the Natural History Museum Vienna<\/a> for restoration. Museum technicians remove sediment and add gentle binders, because fresh adhesives can fill cracks and hold flakes together.<\/p>\n Funding for the excavation came from the Federal Monuments Office and Lower Austria, which supports heritage work locally.<\/p>\n The discovery still leaves open whether one event or repeated visits built the bone bed over time.<\/p>\n A publication summarizes early interpretations of the Gobelsburg mammoth find, and deeper digs may test those ideas in future seasons as new stratigraphic and dating evidence accumulates.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A winemaker renovating a cellar in Lower Austria uncovered bones from several Ice Age woolly mammoth dating between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[264,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-240012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-animals","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}