Butchered Siberian Mammoth Bones Dated

YAKUTSK, RUSSIA—The Siberian Times reports that the butchered remains of a woolly mammoth discovered on eastern Siberia’s Kotelny Island have been dated to 21,000 years ago by scientists at Tokyo’s Jikei University School of Medicine. Kotelny Island is located in the area known as Beringia, the submerged land bridge that once connected Siberia and North America. Albert Protopopov of the Russian Academy of Sciences said cut marks and chips left by darts were left on the mammoth’s bones when its muscles, trunk, and brain were removed and the bone marrow extracted from its limbs. He thinks the new dates indicate the animal may have been killed by a population that eventually migrated into North America. “Recent DNA research suggests that the split in the populations—and therefore the settlement—happened from around 25,000 years ago,” he said. “This is one of the most interesting things in the discovery of this mammoth, as it will add more information to our knowledge of how people gradually moved towards America.” Genetic study of the mammoth remains is planned. To read about butchered mammoth remains identified in Wisconsin, go to "America, in the Beginning: Schaefer and Hebior Kill Sites."