By looking at the Strontium values in certain parts of the mammoth tusk-such as those that formed when the mammoth was an infant, a juvenile and an adult-and comparing those values to an isotope map of the ancient Arctic, the researchers were able to outline the life of this ancient beast. That inspired Wooller to think about applying the same logic to something bigger-a whole mammoth tusk-to investigate an aspect of mammoth ecology that isn’t well-understood. “I remember him coming into my office for the first time and saying that he wanted to use strontium isotopes in fish ear bones to track their movement,” Wooller recalls. Paleontologists have used similar techniques to study the movements of ancient elephants before, but the origin of this particular study, Wooler says, was inspired by his former PhD student Sean Brennan-who passed away in a skiing accident and to whose memory the new paper is dedicated. Thanks to the way they grow, tusks create records of an individual mammoth’s life, with the younger years of the mammoth’s life preserved at the tip and the adult years at the base. Different locations had different strontium signatures, which became preserved in the mammoth’s tusks. These plants contained isotopes like strontium, which were taken into the mammoth’s body through digestion and became part of the mammal’s tusk tissues. What’s special about the tusk, though, isn’t just how well-preserved the huge tooth is, but the isotopes preserved within.ĭuring the frigid days of the Pleistocene, the woolly mammoth munched on a variety of Ice Age plants. Based upon the single X chromosome found in the genetic analysis, the researchers identify the mammoth as a male. The mammoth at the center of the new Science paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Matthew Wooller and colleagues lived to be about 28 years old, and roamed around ancient Alaska around 17,100 years ago. The clues come from geochemical isotopes locked inside the Ice Age beast’s tusk, a toothy time capsule that acts like an ancient mammoth tracker. In the space of his lifetime, one single mammoth who trundled through the ancient Arctic traveled so persistently that his accumulated mileage would have been enough to circumnavigate the planet-twice.
An adult male woolly mammoth navigates a mountain pass 17,100 years ago.
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