No jokes about overindulging please, but an Austrian winemaker found three enormous mammoths while renovating his wine cellar.
Well, their bones.
Experts have called the find, in Gobelsburg, north west of Vienna, as the most significant of its kind in more than 100 years and an archaeological sensation.
In addition to adding to the catalogue of mammoth bones already discovered, the fact all three animals appear to be on top of each other could suggest they were caught in a trap. This could help answer a question that has long puzzled archaeologists – how did humans hunt these giant creatures?
The stunning find was made by Andreas Pernerstorfer, who discovered what he initially thought was a piece of wood while digging out the cellar. He reported the find to the Federal Monuments Office, which referred him to the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).
Around 150 years ago flint artefacts, jewellry fossils and charcoal were all found in an adjacent cellar, which were thought to be around 30,000 to 40,000 years old.
Archaeologists believe the layer of mammoth bones probably belonged to the same site.
They think the ‘significant bone layer’ contains the remains of at least three different mammoths.
‘Such a dense layer of bones is rare,’ said Hannah Parow-Souchon, who is leading the excavation. ‘It is the first time that we have been able to examine something like this in Austria using modern means – a unique opportunity for research.’
Mammoths: the lowdown
Mammoths are an extinct member of the elephantidae family, which includes modern-day elephants.
There were several species of mammoth, the most well-known of which is the woolly mammoth – which was also the smallest.
Mammoths evolved from the African mammoth, before spreading across Eurasia and North America.
The last mammoths, isolated groups of woolly mammoths, are thought to have gone extinct about 4,000 years ago.
However, work is ongoing to try to resurrect the species.
Researchers have long known that people in the Stone Age hunted mammoths, but exactly how they were able to take down the nine-tonne, three metre-high animals is unknown.
Now the team is investigating the site to try to determine did they simply die there, or did they fall into a trap set by locals?
If the answer is B, it will change our understanding of how Stone Age societies operated.
Once the dig is complete, the bones will be sent to the Natural History Museum in Vienna for restoration.
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