Europe’s historic drought is doing more than disrupting shipping and water supplies. Record-low water levels in the Danube and Rhine, driven by prolonged heat and a lack of rainfall, are exposing traces of the continent’s past that had remained hidden beneath the water for decades, and, in some cases, millennia.
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Among the most striking finds are German World War II warships emerging from the Danube near Serbia’s Prahovo and Ice Age woolly mammoth remains uncovered in Bulgaria.
Along the Rhine, low water has once again disrupted river traffic and revived memories of the river’s infamous “hunger stones”, markers historically associated with severe drought and hardship.
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Woolly mammoths co-existed with early humans who hunted the cold-resistant herbivores for food and used their tusks and bones as tools. Specialists have so far identified a jaw bone, fragments of tusks, part of a shoulder blade and a femur with its articular head among the stash, AFP reported.
