Divers discover 110.000-year-old mammoth tusk in German lake

Divers in Germany have made a sensational archaeological discovery at the bottom of a lake, a 110.000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk.

80-centimetre mammoth tusk discovered in Salzgitter

Two divers have discovered an 80-centimetre woolly mammoth tooth in Salzgittersee, Lower Saxony. Jürgen Wiegleb and Jürgen Woelke discovered the tooth in July and delivered it to the Schloss Städler Museum in Salzgitter, where it is being conserved.

What makes the tooth so special, apart from it being 110.000 years old, is that it is in one complete piece. Conservationists believe the tooth came from a young woolly mammoth that lived during the last ice age.

Mammoth tooth will go on display in Germany

The tusk is currently being conserved in a water tank to ensure it remains undamaged and hydrated. Further conservation work is expected to take around two years before the tusk goes on display at the local museum.

In April, researchers discovered 1,1-million-year-old microbes and bacteria in mammoth fossils, which is now the oldest known bacterial DNA from an animal microbe. In 2023, an Australian startup also managed to use mammoth DNA to create a mammoth meatball.