Curious Mammoth Find

Bones of mammoths and other prehistoric animals are found rather frequently in the north at locations where the soil has remained frozen. Usually the bones are found relatively deep in frozen ground, well below the near-surface layer which freezes and thaws annually.

Hence it was unusual that a mammoth tusk and two teeth were found within four feet of the ground surface in 1979 by a housing contractor excavating for a basement next to the Fairbanks campus of the University of Alaska. Particularly surprising is that the tusk and teeth were found on an open park-like crest of a hill. No permafrost was found in the excavation nor would one expect any at this well-drained sunshiny location.

However, signs of deterioration were evident. The tusk and the teeth broke into pieces, more or less of their own accord, after being exposed to air, and the skull that had encased them could be seen as only a thin golden-brown layer in the soil.

The mammoth remains were found in a foot-thick layer of humus-rich, wind-blown silt that was the ground surface for many years at the time the mammoth lived. After the animal died, more wind-blown silt deposited on the site and built the surface up to the present-day level.

Probably the mammoth died some thousands of years ago. But still it is not obvious how the mammoth remains could have been preserved for any length of time at such a warm, unrefrigerated site. Perhaps the site has not always been so warm. Not far away, dense spruce trees keep the underlying forest floor cooler in summer, perhaps cool enough for permafrost to exist in some places.