"I've already put it in the garbage cans." The fact that Simone Grundmann did not throw away the old cardboard box with bones after clearing out her attic is a fortunate coincidence for the historiography of the city of Soest.
The experts in urban archaeology, where Grundmann makes her find, quickly realize that the bones must have come from a larger animal. Maybe from an elephant? "I never dared to hope that it was something older," says archaeologist Julia Ricken.
At least 15,000 years old
But it was: Analyses showed that it is the remains of a woolly mammoth, among others. The bones are at least 15,000 years old – the oldest find in the city.
"It's just nice that such a well-rounded thing came out," says Grundmann. In addition, this revives the memory of the actual finder: her father Franz-Josef, who died in 2015.
Last autumn, she insulated the attic of her single-family home because of the energy crisis and cleared it out, says Grundmann. Soon she had the box with the bones in front of her feet.
"My father told me about it at some point, but I didn't think about it anymore," says Grundmann. Her father had run a tree nursery in the north of Soest in the eighties and had come across the bones while digging. He probably also tried to have the find investigated, Grundmann recalls. But that did not happen. "Maybe he had a gut feeling. He probably didn't keep them up there for nothing," she says.
Everyone advised her: "Throw them away," she says. "But that didn't feel right." Instead, she took the bones to urban archaeology. Specialists have found out: It is bones of a woolly mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros and a steppe bison, says archaeologist Ricken. They are at least 15,000 years old. At the time, however, mammoths were extinct in the area. The finds could therefore be even older. In view of the expensive analysis required for this, they have not been precisely dated for the time being.
The archaeologist explains that bones of three different animals were found: The place of discovery does not have to be the exact place of death. With such old finds, it is therefore quite possible that the bones were mixed up in the ground during the Ice Age. According to Ricken, the bones will be exhibited in the municipal Burghofmuseum as soon as possible. "I think my father is smiling up there," says Grundmann.