A 3,000-year-old wooden staircase has been found at Hallstatt in northern Austria, immaculately preserved in a Bronze Age salt mine, Vienna's Natural History Museum say.
 
"We have found a wooden staircase which dates from the 13th century BC. It is the oldest wooden staircase discovered to date in Europe, maybe even in the world," Hans Reschreiter, the director of excavations at the museum said.
  
"The staircase is in perfect condition because the micro-organisms that cause wood to decompose do not exist in salt mines," he added.
  
The staircase is about one metre wide and is made of pine and spruce.
  
It was used, the archaeologist said, during the Bronze Age to go down into the saltmine and was found some 100 metres below the surface.
  
The salt mine lies about 200 metres from a necropolis which was the seat of the so-called Hallstatt Civilisation, one of the most important and advanced of the Iron Age, that lived around 700 BC.
  
"For the moment we have uncovered a piece of only about seven metres, but the staircase extends further down and up," Reschreiter said.
  
He said previously the oldest known wooden staircase in Europe dated back to the fifth century BC.