The mammoth was found at the end of the nineteenth century by geologists who first became aware of the special composition of the sand, clay and peat shifts in the area and which led to the discovery of bone fossils in the clay pits of “Klinge not far from Kottbus”.The mammoth was found at the end of the nineteenth century by geologists who first became aware of the special composition of the sand, clay and peat shifts in the area and which led to the discovery of bone fossils in the clay pits of “Klinge not far from Kottbus”.After some thigh bone residue of a young mammoth was found in the “Schmidtschen” clay pit in 1894, another discovery in the clay pit at “Grosche” in 1903 was made; a preserved and to a large extend completely mammoth skeleton; the first one of its kind in Germany.

The find was described in 1908 in specific literature, briefly. However, it then fell into oblivion. The first scientific processing occurred 1996 through the vertebrate-palaeontologist of the Natural History Museum Berlin, Dr. Karlheinz Fischer. Using the size of the cymbal bone and the tusks the mammoth was determined to be a full-grown female. Because mammoth bulls normally become larger than mammoth cows, the find of Klinge with a 2,75 m-height at the shoulders is a small specimen. According to the preservation state of the teeth its age was estimated on about 45 – 50 years old.

Kartographie-Ausscnitt: Verlag Reinhard Semmler