Serbia: Mammoth graveyard discovered at coal mining site

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Serbia: Mammoth graveyard discovered at coal mining site

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Graveyard of a herd of mammoths has been discovered at an excavation site for coal in Serbia.

29 June,2012 05:02 am

Serbian archaeologists have found a large graveyard of mammoths, recently discovered at an excavation site for coal.They were found near the town Kostolac, some 100 km east of the capital Belgrade.Heavy rain recently exposed the remains of what could be up to seven mammoths, not far from a site where other remains of the extinct animals had been uncovered in 2009.Director of the Archaeological Project Viminacium, Miomir Korac, said that the discovery came as a complete surprise.On every 30 metres we found mammoth bones, so at the moment we have seven groups of mammoth bones, which are visible, thats very impressive number, dont forget that we are in process of excavation, we now have to dig down to 100 metres , so I am sure that we might find something else, besides mammoths, maybe some other beings which lived next to mammoths, this is fantastic, Korac told Reuters Television.The archaeologists were first alerted to one set of mammoth remains that was damaged by mining machinery. But heavy rain later rinsed away the remains.Koracs team will now use infrared screening to get a better idea of what lies below the surface and check if there are additional mammoth bones.Thats why we have a group of experts from all scientific fields, we will do infra red scanning of all the areas, experts for paleobotany and Palaeozoic era will do their research, we have to find out, what type of climate was then. And then, maybe we will be able to determine why we have such a group of mammoths here so, so maybe we would be able to say what really and why it happened here, said Korac.The location covers an area of some 20,000 square metres on what could have been an island in the Pannonian Sea.Just a kilometre away, the first prehistoric skeleton was discovered in 2009. The bones belonged to a female mammoth, that was later named Vika, which is now one of the biggest scientific attractions in Serbia. Experts concluded that Vika drowned in swamp mud.These particular creatures lived in the range of 100,000 years ago to as long as one million years ago, Serbian and international scientist estimate.Experts believe that either some sort of catastrophe struck a herd, killing all the mammoths in the same place, or the first mammoths graveyard has indeed been found.