It was in 1939, deep inside a cave in the mountains of southwestern Germany, that archaeologist Otto Völzing found the pieces of mammoth tusk that have become known as the Löwenmensch, or Lion Man in English.

Restorators have to try to fit the pieces together | © DPA Picture Alliance / Alamy

Völzing had little time to consider the significance of the small splintered pieces of mammoth tusk he’d come across. Europe was on the verge of war and he was called up into the Waffen-SS.

The pieces were stored away and would not be assembled for decades.

Völzing did not discover all of the fragments though. Archaeologist Claus-Joachim Kind returned to the site in 2008 and over the course of three years hunted out several hundred more small pieces being found.