Collaborations details

The Bullendorf Mammoth

In August 2016 two exceptionally well preserved mammoth tusks and several bones were discovered during construction work for the highway A5 near Bullendorf 50 km north of Vienna. The fossilised remains were preserved in lacustrine sediments that show strong periglacial overprinting and are overlain by a thick succession of loess-like sediments. These mammoth remains were recovered in a rescue excavation by the Natural History Museum (NHM) of Vienna and the Geological Survey of Austria and are currently investigated by paleontologists of the NHM. The extensive but only temporarily accessible sediment outcrops provide unique insights into the Quaternary evolution of the Bullendorf area. Detailed sedimentological investigations conducted by the Geological Survey in combination with an OSL dating campaign will allow us to constrain the age of these fossil remains and to reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental conditions for the time when the Bullendorf mammoth roamed this part of the alpine foreland.

Collaboration with Reinhard Rötzl (Geological Survey of Austria) and Oleg Mandic and Ursula Göhlich (NHM Vienna).
Luminescence dating: Michael Meyer.

Back