That’s a mammoth bone! Woolly beast’s remains in ... Cambridge
THE remains of a 130,000-year- old woolly mammoth have been found by workers expanding a main road.
The bones were found by Highways england staff working on the A14 expansion between cambridge and Huntingdon. They also discovered the remains of a woolly rhino.
Palaeontologist dean lomax said: ‘Woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos were once a common part of the wildlife here in the UK, during the Ice Age. However, recent discoveries like this are quite uncommon.’
The digger driver who found the bones initially thought he had uncovered a tree root. darren Hickman, 48, of Pontefract, West yorkshire, said: ‘I did a trial load into the base clay level and that’s where I found the first mammoth tusk and the bones.
‘It looked like a tree root or a tree branch. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime find. It’s a pretty good feeling.’
Mammoths became extinct around 8,000bc. Scientists believe they were wiped out by climate change and hunters.