Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice Page #3

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compared with each other,

'that Dan's able to construct an

understanding

'of entire mammoth populations. '

I think it can seem as

though you are stamp collecting,

that you're just collecting

specimens for the sake of it,

but there's a real

scientific value to them.

There is. The problem is not solved.

We've established that the data

that we would need are available.

We've established the first few

points that suggest a direction

and give some meaning to

the patterns that we see.

'Understanding mammoths

takes more

'than museum work and text books,

'it requires teams like the

International Mammoth Committee

'to venture into the wilderness,

working with locals

'and hunting for specimens, at times

chasing nothing more than rumours. '

Bernard's just been

on a reconnaissance mission,

so hopefully he should be able

to corroborate whether there

is in fact a mammoth around here,

or whether it's all wild tales.

DOG BARKS:

Welcome back, welcome back.

So Bernard, how did it go?

Difficult to say, you know how fast

things are changing.

Yeah, yeah.

So, some days ago it was under ice,

and today and tomorrow I don't know

we'll see what will happen.

Have you been able to speak to

anybody that's actually seen it?

No because it's a bit secret, yeah,

you know the one who knows about the

mammoth, won't say to anybody and...

But I see that you are very

impatient and I'm...

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited

to get there.

Yeah, I am, I am, I'm also.

'Bernard has scant information

to work with.

'During this hunt his team

are hitchhiking

'with a Siberian gas company's

private train network

'to visit the scene

of a mammoth sighting.

'It's now flooded after

the spring snow melt. '

You see the location is quite big,

yeah?

It is a large lake. And do you think

the mammoth is where

in relation to the lake thing,

because it's a big lake.

It's difficult to know can be in the

middle of the lake,

can be on the side. I hope it's not

in the middle of the lake.

Yeah, yeah, can be, can be.

'The team is trying to use ground

penetrating radar

'to search for specimens

underground. '

'Here they work for days

in an effort to find

'one of the rarest of all

prehistoric riches -

'a frozen carcass.

'Looking for ancient mammoth

remains is unpredictable.

'It's a science,

but an inexact science.

'This hunt concludes with

a negative result. '

I am a little bit frustrated but,

just now I need to keep in mind how

to organise the next step

for this mammoth because

I will not let him,

let's say alone, yeah,

we need to take care of him.

See what will

happen during the summer.

Yeah.

LAUGHTER:

'Each new specimen

has the potential

'to deepen our understanding

of mammoths.

'In many ways we actually know

more about mammoths

'than we do about many living

species,

'enabling us to recreate how

they would have lived

'on the Siberian plains. '

'Much of that understanding

has come from

'the recent advances in analysing

mammoth tusks. '

I first met Dan Fisher

out in the field in Siberia,

but now I've come to his place

of work

at the University of Michigan's

Museum of Natural History,

to find out what happens to the

tusks which he brings back with him.

'It's the internal

structure of a tusk which reveals

'a mammoth's true secrets.

'But the only way to see it

is to break a tusk open. '

Dan, this is a beautiful tusk.

It seems like an almost sacrilegious

thing to think of doing,

you know this has

survived for thousands of years

and we're going to cut it open.

Well, I understand that,

but what if you found an incredible

old manuscript and it was closed?

Would it be sacrilegious

to open it and read it?

Would it be sacrilegious

to learn from it?

Yes, in some sense, we are,

you could say, violating the tusk.

But in another sense it's really

capturing the story it has to tell.

Which tooth is it that

forms the tusk?

The tusks of elephants

and their relatives

are modified second incisors,

so not our middle ones,

but just lateral to that.

The lateral incisors.

Can you tell

if it's a left or a right?

Yes, this is a right tusk,

based on the geometry of curvature,

is such that it's

characteristic of what

we see on the right

side of mammoth's faces.

So a right tusk. And do you know how

old this animal might have

been at the time of death?

This was probably

say about a 15-year-old.

That's a ballpark guess

right now,

we'll find out after

we cut the tusk.

Yeah, so a teenage mammoth! Right.

'Dan needs a clean cut,

'so he builds a bespoke cradle for

each tusk before slicing it open. '

All right.

'The largest mammoth tusks

ever found

'weighed almost 120 kilograms each.

'Far more than an average adult man.

'Both male and female mammoths

possessed large tusks,

'and it seems that the weight of

carrying such huge objects

'required them to have larger

neck and shoulder muscles

'than we see in modern elephants.

'The surface of tusks show

microscopic scratches,

'possibly caused when mammoths

used them

'to clear ice and snow while

foraging for food.

MAMMOTHS TRUMPE:

'And polished areas indicate

they may have favoured

'one of their tusks

for resting their trunks on. '

Well we've done it,

now we've just got to open it up.

Ooh.

The moment we've waited for.

Can I do this Dan?

Yes, you certainly may.

So just lift up and away.

SHE WHISPERS:
Look at that!

That's beautiful.

It's gorgeous.

So, I can see a darker streak and a

paler one and a darker one,

so is that a year in this

animal's life?

That would be a year, yes.

The dark portions

basically are winter,

and so the light and the dark

together would make one year

and the next light and dark together

would make the next year.

So, this is a record

of an ancient Winter. Right.

'The tusk is packed with

information,

'but the patterns in it are hard

to see until it's polished

'and viewed under

ultra violet light. '

Oh, wow.

OK, now that is a lot better.

That's fantastic.

What a difference. Isn't it?

That's amazing, that's so much more

detail than we could see.

It's like you've put on magic glasses

and you can see through it. Yeah, yeah.

'Like other teeth,

tusks grow from the jaw outwards.

'Once highlighted, the growth

bands are clearly visible,

'spreading from root to tip.

'Although this tusk

shows about 15 years of growth,

'there are in fact hundreds of

microscopic growth lines present. '

We're seeing some really

beautiful fine lines here. Yes.

So we can see successive winters

and summers, winters and summers,

Right. Winters. Right.

Now, in fact, the direction of time

though is outside in, so the years.

It's the opposite of trees is

the way to think of it.

In a tree you would think

time goes this way

but in a tusk time goes this way.

And it is like looking at tree

rings,

you know we have these kind of

annual cycles in tree rings as well.

Except that tusks have weeks

and days which trees don't have.

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