Mammoth Research

The youngest (~5,000 years ago) woolly mammoth fossils have only been found on isolated islands (e.g. St Paul Island in the Bering Sea, Alaska ~5,600 years ago).

On mainland Alaska the youngest mammoth fossil is ~11,650 years old.

However, recent cutting edge research has found ancient DNA from woolly mammoths in Northwestern Canada dating to about 9,000 years ago.

We are on the hunt, with your help, to find the youngest woolly mammoth on mainland Alaska.

In addition to dating your adopted mammoth we will also try to sequence the ancient DNA preserved in the fossil. If we can sequence the DNA we may be able to tell you whether your adopted mammoth is male or female and how it is related to all the other mammoths in this project.

Your adoption of a mammoth will also allow more exciting mammoth research - check out some of the 'mammoth' things we have been up to - including tracking the movement of a mammoth in Alaska 17,000 years ago.

This beautiful image was painted by James Havens in Anchorage Alaska to use as the front cover of Science where our work was published and showed the movement of a woolly mammoth in Alaska (check out the movies below). This painting is life size and is going on display in the UA Museum of the North.

Check out this movie tracking the movement of where a mammoth walked in Alaska 17,000 years ago:

And is how we tracked the movement of this mammoth using a dated and split mammoth tusk from the museum collection:

And below some of the other media coverage:

For more details and with questions e mail Dr. Mat Wooller: mjwooller@alaska.edu

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For questions or comments regarding this page, contact mjwooller@alaska.edu