In another incident of accidental paleontology while coal mining, Serbian operator TPPs-OCMs Kostolac unearthed at least five woolly mammoths 20m down its Kostolac brown coal open pit.

Serbia’s Kostolac and Kolubara coal basins produced some 37 million tonnes of brown coal in 2010, feeding power stations in nearby communities on the Danube River.

The discovery of mammoth remains in this part of the world is rare and, reportedly, may allow scientists to better explain the effect of the last ice age on the Balkans.

“There are millions of mammoth fragments in the world but they are rarely so accessible for exploration.” Miomir Korac of Serbia’s Archaeology Institute told the Associated Press.

“A mammoth field can offer incredible information and shed light on what life looked like in these areas during the ice age.”

According to the report, a well-preserved skeleton of a much older mammoth, belonging to a southern type which lacked dense fur, was found at the same site in 2009 and was estimated to be a million years old.

The newly discovered bones, however, are likely to be of the woolly variety which disappeared about 10,000 years ago, Serbian Museum of Natural History mammoth expert Sanja Alaburic told the AP.

Serbian archaeologists contacted colleagues in France and Germany for consultation and believed at least six months of work would be needed before all the bones at the discovery site were collected.

The Kostolac coal basin is in an agricultural part of Serbia and is famous for its archaeological site Viminacium.

Coal production at Kostolac is expected to increase as the country’s energy development strategy includes the construction of new coal-fired power stations.