Fossils believed to be from woolly mammoths have turned out to be something completely unexpected: whale remains. This surprising discovery began in 1951, when archaeologist Otto Geist found two vertebrae in Alaska’s Beringia region, an area rich in prehistoric life. At the time, mammoth bones were common, so it made sense they would be from such a creature.
Fast forward to today. The bones sat for over 70 years at the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North. Thanks to the museum’s Adopt-a-Mammoth program, scientists recently dated the fossils. The results? They are much younger than expected, dating back only 2,000 to 3,000 years, while mammoths are believed to have gone extinct around 13,000 years ago.
This new timeline raises big questions. According to a peer-reviewed paper by biogeochemist Matthew Wooller and his team, if these bones really belonged to a mammoth, they would be a remarkable find—the youngest known mammoth fossils. The excitement didn’t stop there; deeper analysis revealed something odd. The bones had high levels of nitrogen-15 and carbon-13, common in marine animals. No mammoth fossils ever discovered in this region showed such signatures since it’s not a marine environment.
Wooller’s team realized they could not rely solely on physical features to identify the bones. They needed ancient DNA. Though degraded, they extracted mitochondrial DNA and compared it with known whale species like the Northern Pacific Right whale (Eubalaena japonica) and the Common Minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata).
What these findings show is crucial. The fossils were confirmed to be whale remains, which brings yet another puzzle: How did they end up hundreds of miles inland? Researchers propose a few theories. One possibility is that these whales made their way through ancient waterways to the interior of Alaska. However, given their large size, this is deemed unlikely. Another theory suggests that ancient humans might have transported the bones. This has been seen in other areas but not in Alaska’s interior. Finally, there’s the chance of a mix-up in the museum’s collections.
This conundrum underscores how much there is still to learn about the past. Wooller’s team concluded that while we may never fully uncover the mystery, at least we can rule out these specimens as the last of the mammoths. The research is published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.
This discovery not only sheds light on how we interpret fossil evidence, but it also opens up discussions about how marine and terrestrial ecosystems interacted in the past. For those interested in archaeological findings, keeping an eye on ongoing research can reveal more fascinating insights into our planet’s history.
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