New discovery: the skeleton of extinct mammoths in france
It
was found next to two flint blades - suggesting Neanderthal hunters
would have been cutting it up for meat after hunting the creature down.
A perfectly preserved skeleton of a woolly mammoth which lived at least 20,000 years ago has been found near Paris.
The
incredible discovery saw the bones and tusks of the prehistoric animal
dug up by archaeologists at Changis-Sur-Marne, on the banks of the Marne
River.
Archeologists just outside Paris have unearthed a near complete skeleton of a mammoth
The find was made on the Changis-sur-Marne riverbank about 30 miles east of Paris
It would have been around 9ft
tall, with even longer tusks, and roamed the countryside before the
French capital had even been thought of.
The
mammoths are thought to have disappeared because of the combined
effects of climate change, contagious diseases and human hunting.
But some have been preserved in their organic state after being frozen and being preserved over centuries.
The
Changis mammoth, which has been nicknamed Helmut, would have been
around 30 years old when it died, making it a relatively young adult.
Historians
from the French archaeological research centre Inrap first began to dig
up the animal in July after spotting it in the Gallo-Roman site.
The skeleton of the mammoth has been christened ìHelmut' by the archaeologists
The remains include four connected vertebrae and a complete pelvis
It was buried under sandy soil,
making it relatively easy to excavate, with the archaeologists now
hoping to reconstruct its last movements.
Greg Bayle, the chief scientist on the dig, confirmed that the flints 'appear to have been used to cut the animal'.
The
last great find of a mammoth in France was as far back as 1859 when
another one was found in Lyon, in the east of the country.
There have been far more discoveries in northeast Sibera, where the climate is far more likely to preserve the creatures.
The
mammoth will be transported to the natural history museum in Paris in
the next 10 days, where it will eventually be put on display for the
public to look out.
The find dates back some 20,000-50,000 years ago, and were discovered by accident during excavations at an Ancient Roman site
The mammoth was described as
one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 21st Century -
especially as it might help scientists gain a better understanding of
Neanderthal man.
'Some
archaeologists have spent have spent their lives dreaming of such a
discovery with no luck,' said Mr Bayle, the head of the excavation.
He
said that the mammoth would have existed when the Seine-et-Marne
department, some 50 miles from Paris, was a vast grassy plain, with ice
blocks flowing across the River Marne.
'The
greatest prize are the flints nearby,' said Stephane Pean, another
scientist involved. 'They show the presence of man on the side, and will
help us built up a better understanding of the Neandethals, who were
contemporaries of the mammoth.'
It may have been that the mammoth was being moved down river by hunters, said Mr Pean.
The archaeologists will now have to pay half of the 'value' of the mammoth to the owner of the land upon which it was found.
