Skeleton of an Elk

In 1956, the complete skeleton of a European elk (alces alces) was discovered at a depth of about seven metres (23 feet) in Berlin’s Tiergartenpark during the construction of the Underground line between Hansaplatz and Turmstrasse. The stratigraphy suggested that it dated from the Late Ice Age, and radiocarbon dating in the Leibniz Laboratory of Kiel University confirmed this assumption. The elk had clearly lived in a time of transition from a mild to a cold phase at the end of the last Ice Age, and had died of natural causes. The species was native to the northeastern part of Germany until the end of the Second World War. After a recent decline in intensive agriculture, wolves and elk have been returning to Brandenburg from the dense forests of Poland since 1990.