Eisleben (dpa/sa) - An international team of scientists has discovered traces of dinosaurs near Eisleben (Mansfeld-Südharz). "Whole treads with imprints were and are exposed, documented and removed with a hammer, chisel and brush," said a spokesman for the Museum of Natural History in Magdeburg on Tuesday. The excavations are currently taking place in the red sandstone and mudstone of an old quarry.
At that time, according to the head of the excavation, the region was a depression with small, shallow pools that lay on the edge of a low mountain range. In the shallow waterholes "lively life prevailed, as evidenced by the hand, foot and scratch marks of lizard-like four-legged creatures the size of mice to cats and the many footprints of insects". Some trackers probably slipped or sank deeply on the wet and malleable layers of clay. Bone finds have not yet been proven, but not completely ruled out. The traces come from so-called primordial dinosaurs, the ancestors of the dinosaurs
