London: A well conserved skeleton of a woolly mammoth Helmut from at least 200,000 years ago has been dug up near Paris, it has been revealed.
Helmut – as the creature has been nicknamed – died aged about 30 and was 9 feet tall with even longer tusks.
The mammoth’s tusks and bones were found next to two flint blades – suggesting that it was hunted by Neanderthals and cut up.
“Some archaeologists spend their lives dreaming of such a discovery with no luck,” the Mirror quoted Greg Bale, who led the dig at Changis-sur-Marne, as saying.
The bones were discovered by accident during the excavation of an ancient Roman site 30 miles east of Paris.
The skeleton will be taken to Paris’s Natural History Museum, where it will eventually go on public display.
ANI
First Published: Thursday, November 08, 2012, 16:10