Simulation of a group of woolly mammoths that lived during the Ice Age. Photo: National Geographic.
According to local reports, the fossils were discovered in late May by miner Trey Charlie at the Little Flake gold mine owned by TV star Parker Schnabel. Recently, after completing the excavation process, Schnabel submitted all three skeletons to the Yukon government for further study.
Paleontologist Grant Zazula emphasized that this was a “very exciting” discovery because it is rare for so many woolly mammoth bones to be found in the same location by gold miners.
“We appear to have two adult mammoths, one of which was very large, and the remaining skeleton belongs to a juvenile. They may have been members of the same family or large herd.” , Zazula said.
Gold miner Trey Charlie took a photo with a mammoth bone almost as big as his body. Photo: Zshmittay .
The team took bone samples and sent them to the DNA lab at McMaster University in Hamilton to determine whether the mammoths were actually related. The samples were then sent to the University of California, USA for radiocarbon dating.
Based on volcanic ash found nearby, Zazula surmised that the mammoths died about 29,000 years ago. The team also sent ash samples to Canada’s University of Alberta for age determination.
“We have all the samples we need and the research now is like a detective mission to find out what happened,” Zazula added.
The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is the closest relative of the modern Asian elephant. They once roamed the North American and Eurasian continents during the Ice Age but disappeared from the mainland about 10,000 years ago. Isolated populations continued to exist on some islands afterward, until their complete extinction 4,000 years ago.
Mammuthus primigenius was about the same size as modern African elephants. Males can reach a height of 3.4 m and weigh up to 6 tons, while females are smaller, 2.6 – 2.9 m tall and weigh 4 tons.
