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A U.S.-Canadian team of researchers used genetic and isotope analysis to “read the biography” of a mammoth from a single bivy found.
Beginning life in the western Yukon, the mammoth traveled hundreds of kilometers across northwestern Canada before reaching its final resting place, an early human settlement in what is now Alaska.
Isotope analysis is based on the “you are what you eat” principle. The method can provide precise information about the animals’ lives – such as their diet, geographic origins and migration patterns.
The discovered tusk belonged to an adult female woolly mammoth about 20 years old. The individual died about 14,000 years ago at the hands of ancient hunters.
