Overview

• Hobby searcher Rustem Wagner discovered the roughly 4‑kilogram, about 30‑centimeter back tooth on the Rhine at Oberkassel and reported it to authorities.
• LVR geoarchaeologist Philipp Schulte confirmed it as a mammoth molar in unusually good condition, with a possible link to a woolly mammoth.
• Experts say the tooth is at least about 15,000 years old and could be up to 125,000 years old, with precise dating still to come.
• The specimen is in custody of the LVR heritage office and is being stabilized and examined at the Ruhr Museum in Essen.
• Its preservation likely reflects long-term submersion that kept it sealed from air, and the region has previously yielded Ice Age remains in Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen.