The horns of a giant deer, bones of bison, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, Eurasian wild horse and saiga antelope were found by scientists on the "Kostyanaya Linsa" - the site of an abnormally large accumulation of fragments of extinct animals, as well as traces of an ancient human in the Tobol River in the Kurgan region. This was reported by the official group of the regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society on the VKontakte social network.
The "Kostyanaya Linsa" was discovered by divers in 2004; the Turgaisky Strait of the West Siberian Sea was located on this territory in the Cenozoic and Mesozoic era (160–29 million years ago). According to one version, animals crossed the river here, and the weakest and oldest were washed away by the current. Today, the river eroded soft sediments and laid bare sections of the bottom of the ancient sea.
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"The expedition on the Tobol River in the Kurgan Region was carried out by the historical, regional and expeditionary departments of the Sverdlovsk branch of the RGS, with the support of the Triton Ural Diving Center, and also with the participation of the Sysertsk branch of the RGS and the "Sled" research and expeditionary group. Divers examined the new site of the river. During the first dives, the tibia of an ancient bison was discovered and raised from the bottom. All subsequent dives were also rich in finds - bones of a bison, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, Eurasian wild horse, saiga antelope. The most unique finding in this expedition is the part of the giant deer antlers", - it said in a statement.
The expedition also raised soil from the bottom of the river, which contains fossils of the ancient seabed of the West Siberian Sea - the teeth of ancient sharks, stingrays, fish and shells of brachiopods. All finds will be transferred to the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Regional Histrory and its branches.
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"Our task is to find a new, still unknown fossil shark, since many millions of years ago there was the Turgaisky Strait of the West Siberian Sea and marine inhabitants lived here. Today, twenty species of sharks that lived in these places are known. But scientists believe that not all of them have been studied and a new species of fossil sharks can be found," says the expedition leader, member of the Sverdlovsk Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society, Sergei Kondrashin.
In January 2015, at the bottom of Tobol, a fragment of a ceramic vessel of the Neolithic was discovered for the first time, which helped to open a new, previously unknown Neolithic site of an ancient human. In addition, a skull of a bison, the lower jaw of a mammoth, bones of a saiga antelope, a bison, a cave lion, and a horse were found there - they are in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Regional History. Previously, divers found cannonballs at the bottom of the river, with the help of which in the 18th century Russian settlements defended themselves from numerous raids by the Bashkirs.