The Lier Mammoth

While work was being done on the Nete River in Lier (in the province of Antwerp) in 1860, the bones of two adult mammoths, one young mammoth, a cave hyena, a horse, and a deer were discovered. All have been dated to the Upper Palaeolithic (35,000 – 10,000 years ago).

In 1869, Louis De Pauw was given the job of trying to reconstruct an adult mammoth skeleton (he would later be put in charge of assembling the Bernissart iguanodons). He used carved wooden pieces to replace missing bones. Visitors came from all over Europe to admire the result. At the time, the only other mounted mammoth skeleton in the world was in St Petersburg, in Russia.

Admire our great mammoth in the ‘250 years of Natural Sciences’ hall.