Study takes unprecedented peek into life of 17,000-year-old mammoth

Image by James Havens
Image by James Havens
An adult male woolly mammoth navigates a mountain pass in Arctic 乐虎直播 17,100 years ago. The image is produced from an original life-size painting by paleo artist James Havens. The painting is housed at the University of 乐虎直播 Museum of the North in Fairbanks.

An international research team has retraced the astonishing lifetime journey of an Arctic woolly mammoth, which covered enough of the 乐虎直播 landscape during its 28 years to almost circle the Earth twice.

Scientists gathered unprecedented details of its life through analysis of a 17,000-year-old fossil from the University of 乐虎直播 Museum of the North. By generating and studying isotopic data in the mammoth鈥檚 tusk, they were able to match its movements and diet with isotopic maps of the region.

Few details have been known about the lives and movements of woolly mammoths, and the study offers the first evidence that they traveled vast distances. An outline of the mammoth鈥檚 life is detailed in the new issue of the journal Science.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not clear-cut if it was a seasonal migrator, but it covered some serious ground,鈥 said 乐虎直播 researcher Matthew Wooller, senior and co-lead author of the paper. 鈥淚t visited many parts of 乐虎直播 at some point during its lifetime, which is pretty amazing when you think about how big that area is.鈥

Researchers at the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility, where Wooller is director, split the 6-foot tusk lengthwise and generated about 400,000 microscopic data points using a laser and other techniques.

The detailed isotope analyses they made are possible because of the way that mammoth tusks grew. Mammoths steadily added new layers on a daily basis throughout their lives. When the tusk was split lengthwise for sampling, these growth bands looked like stacked ice cream cones, offering a chronological record of an entire mammoth鈥檚 life.

UAF photo by JR Ancheta. Mat Wooller, director of the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility, kneels among a collection of mammoth tusks at the University of 乐虎直播 Museum of the North.
UAF photo by JR Ancheta
Mat Wooller, director of the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility, kneels among a collection of mammoth tusks at the University of 乐虎直播 Museum of the North.

鈥淔rom the moment they鈥檙e born until the day they die, they鈥檝e got a diary and it鈥檚 written in their tusks,鈥 said Pat Druckenmiller, a paleontologist and director of the UA Museum of the North. 鈥淢other Nature doesn鈥檛 usually offer up such convenient and lifelong records of an individual鈥檚 life.鈥

Scientists knew that the mammoth died on 乐虎直播鈥檚 North Slope above the Arctic Circle, where its remains were excavated by a team that included UAF鈥檚 Dan Mann and Pam Groves, who are among the co-authors of the study.

Researchers pieced together the mammoth鈥檚 journey up to that point by analyzing isotopic signatures in its tusk from the elements strontium and oxygen, which were matched with maps predicting isotope variations across 乐虎直播. Researchers created the maps by analyzing the teeth of hundreds of small rodents from across 乐虎直播 held in the museum鈥檚 collections. The animals travel relatively small distances during their lifetimes and represent local isotope signals.

Using that local dataset, they mapped isotope variation across 乐虎直播, providing a baseline to trace the mammoth movements. After taking geographic barriers into account and the average distance it traveled each week, researchers used a novel spatial modeling approach to chart the likely routes the animal took during its life.

UAF photo by JR Ancheta. A split mammoth tusk rest on a table at the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility at the 乐虎直播. Karen Spaleta, deputy director of the facility, prepares a piece of mammoth tusk for analysis in the background.
UAF photo by JR Ancheta
A split mammoth tusk rest on a table at the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility at the 乐虎直播. Karen Spaleta, deputy director of the facility, prepares a piece of mammoth tusk for analysis in the background.

Ancient DNA preserved in the mammoth鈥檚 remains allowed the team to identify it as a male that was related to the last group of its species living in mainland 乐虎直播. Those details provided more insight into the animal鈥檚 life and behavior, said Beth Shapiro, who led the DNA component of the study.

For example, an abrupt shift in its isotopic signature, ecology and movement at about age 15 probably coincided with the mammoth being kicked out of its herd, mirroring a pattern seen in some modern-day male elephants.

鈥淜nowing that he was male provided a better biological context in which we could interpret the isotopic data,鈥 said Shapiro, a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Isotopes also offered a clue about what led to the animal鈥檚 demise. Nitrogen isotopes spiked during the final winter of its life, a signal that can be a hallmark of starvation in mammals.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just amazing what we were able to see and do with this data,鈥 said co-lead author Clement Bataille, a researcher from the University of Ottawa who led the modeling effort in collaboration with Amy Willis at the University of Washington.

UAF photo by JR Ancheta. A close-up view shows a split mammoth tusk at the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility. Blue stain is used to reveal growth lines. Samples were taken along the tusk using lasers and other techniques, allowing isotope analysis that provided a record of the mammoth鈥檚 life.
UAF photo by JR Ancheta
A close-up view shows a split mammoth tusk at the 乐虎直播 Stable Isotope Facility. Blue stain is used to reveal growth lines. Samples were taken along the tusk using lasers and other techniques, allowing isotope analysis that provided a record of the mammoth鈥檚 life.

Discovering more about the lives of extinct species satisfies more than curiosity, said Wooller, a professor in the UAF Institute of Northern Engineering and College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Those details could be surprisingly relevant today as many species adapt their movement patterns and ranges with the shifting climate.

鈥淭he Arctic is seeing a lot of changes now, and we can use the past to see how the future may play out for species today and in the future,鈥 Wooller said. 鈥淭rying to solve this detective story is an example of how our planet and ecosystems react in the face of environmental change.鈥

Other institutions contributing to the study included Florida State University, Montanuniversit盲t Leoben, Liaocheng University and the National Park Service.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Matthew Wooller, 907-750-8786, mjwooller@alaska.edu; Clement Bataille, 832-943-8588, cbataill@uottawa.ca

NOTE TO EDITORS: A press availability with researchers will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 12, via Zoom. Visit the  to join the availability. Additional photos, b-roll video and a video abstract of the project will be available upon publication of the Science paper at . The full paper is available from the Science press package team at 202-326-6440 or scipak@aaas.org.