Danube drought exposes fossils in Bulgaria

Drought along the Danube has exposed fossils and historical remains in northern Bulgaria, drawing volunteers to search a dried-up riverbank near where mammoth bones were found last month.

About 20 volunteers joined a search organised by the Ruse Regional History Museum near Ryahovo, around 250 kilometres northeast of Sofia.

The group did not find more mammoth fossils, but the museum said they found remains of a mammal, probably an aurochs or a European bison, a horse jawbone in a subfossil state and fossilised oysters dating back about 60 to 65 million years.

Ruse Regional History Museum curator Krasimir Kirov said the museum organised the field day to show people how to recognise finds and give them safety advice. Volunteers were told not to touch metal objects, which could be ammunition or explosives.

Last month, a Ryahovo resident spotted what museum specialists identified as a mammoth jaw bone, tusk fragments, part of a shoulder blade and a femur.

Low water levels along the Danube have also revealed World War II shipwrecks in Austria and Serbia, as well as the remains of two German soldiers and a motorbike in Budapest, according to the German War Graves Commission.

Further upstream in Bulgaria, the low river has allowed archaeologists to document the foundations of a bridge inaugurated under Emperor Constantine I in 328.

European climate observatory Copernicus says large stretches of many of Europe's biggest rivers fell in July to levels never previously recorded for that month.