Million-Year-Old Mammoth Skeleton Discovered In Serbia

[Bianca]

                                 Million-year-old mammoth skeleton discovered in Serbia 
 
 
 



BELGRADE,
June 3, 2009
www.chinaview.cn
(Xinhua)

-- A skeleton of a mammoth believed to be about 1 million years old has been discovered in an archaeological park in eastern Serbia, the park's director said on Wednesday.

    Miomir Korac, director of Archaeological Park of Viminacium near Kostolac, told Tanjug news agency that the skeleton was discovered in a layer of yellow sand at a depth of 27 meters on Tuesday and it was one of the oldest and rather rare types of mammoth.

    The skeleton is over four meters tall, five meters long and weighs 10 tons, Korac said, adding that the specimen is probably a descendant of the tropical, so-called "southern mammoths," which arrived in Europe from northern Africa over 1 million years ago.

    He also said that it is rather unusual to find so well preserved mammoth skeleton in a river mound.

    According to Serbia's B92 news network, the discovery was made at the Drmno surface coal mine, close to the Imperial Mausoleum of the Viminacium Archeological Park.

    "We were actually very close to the spot when the machinery hit the mammoth remains and we reacted immediately," Korac recounted the moment when the skeleton was found. "We managed to stop them, and were lucky to now have almost the entire mammoth. The skull and tusks were somewhat damaged."

    "What is very interesting is that the poor creature met his death and remained in a layer of some sort of gravel, which means that it is practically preserved, and not even tectonic movements have influenced it to move or dislocate. We found it the way it died," Korac said.

    Unlike the mammoth found in 1996 near Kikinda in northern Serbia, whose remains are some half a million years old, this one is believed to have arrived in what is today eastern Serbia from northern Africa.

    Korac explained that about 1 to 1.5 million years ago, mammoths from northern Africa migrated to southern Europe.

    He said that the find is exceptionally important, consisting of almost the entire skeleton of a mammoth species belonging to the oldest ever found in Europe.

    "Discoveries of these species of mammoth are very rare. That fact alone speaks about its value," said Korac.

    The mammoth skeleton will be restored and exhibited at the Archeological Park in Viminacium -- once a major Roman stronghold on the Danube river

[Harconen]

                                             


A female mammoth much older than presumed
Vika is five million years old
Author: Emanuela Graf | 19.06.2009 - 08:36


Archeological discovery of a completely preserved skeleton of a mammoth near the Viminacium Archeological Park first implied that the prehistoric animal is about one and and half million years old. According to the latest geological finds signed by Slobodan Knezevic, PhD, the mammoth from Kostolac is in fact much older.

It has been explained to the domestic and foreign public that the discovery of the archeological team led by Miomir Korac represents a specimen of tropical mammoths who emigrated from northern Africa to Europe over million years ago and the oldest mammoth found in Europe. It has also been pointed out that the mammoth named Vika is actually a grandfather of our Kika from Kikinda, which is believed to be one of the best preserved fossils of a mammoth- a giant prehistoric animal which lived in Europe about 500,000 years ago.
The report which followed geological explorations signed by Slobodan Knezevic, a geological engineer, gives more detailed explanation of the conclusion that the mammoth Vika is much older. It is pointed out that layers of lignite currently exploited for the needs of thermo-electric power plant “Drmno” originate from the former bay of the Pannonian lake (former sea) in a final phase of development in this region. In the Middle Miocene, the Pannonian Sea was part of the big sea Paratetis, which was the inner sea of Middle and Eastern Europe. The coal field of Kostolac is located on the place of the former bay of the Pannonian province of Paratetis, into which the river Pramorava flew. This is the spot where the river was formed and left sediments.
“After alyzing the geological profile of the spot where Viki was found, it has been found out that fossil layers belong to the final parts of delta sedimentation from the Upper Pont, between the Miocen and Pliocen. These sediments date from the final phase of development of Paratetis and its flowing away from Serbia during the period between 5 and 4.5 million years,” professor Knezevic says in a report.
Vika has been found in sand layers of delta sedimentation in which layers of sand clay and alevrit can also be found.
The latest discovery about Viki’s age emphasize the significance of Serbian archeologists’ discovery, because it turns a new leaf in geology.

                                               

[Cat Goddess]

Awesome picture!