The Story of the “Whales/Mammoths” at the Museum of the North
by carlos matías
In January, scientists from the UAF discovered that some mammoth remains on display for more than 70 years at the Museum of the North are, in fact, whale fossils. What’s puzzling is that they were found 400 kilometers from the sea. Professor Matthew Wooller, the research leader, announced that they now have radiocarbon dating equipment.
“We just set up our own radiocarbon dating facility here this summer, which will allow us to greatly accelerate our efforts to date items in the museum’s collection,” Professor Matthew Wooller tells SOL DE MEDIANOCHE.
“The whale/mammoth mystery was resolved by the ancient DNA samples we found, which determined that the two fossils we were investigating were whales, not mammoths,” he adds.
Wooller’s a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the College of Engineering and Mines and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. He directs the Northern Engineering Institute, the Water and Environmental Research Center, the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility, and the Adopt-a-Mammoth project.
The bones were found in 1951 in central Alaska, more than 400 kilometers from the coast. Based on their shape, researchers believed they belonged to a very young woolly mammoth. But the UAF study, using ancient DNA testing and chemical analysis, discovered that they belonged to two whales: one ‘minke’ and another ‘right’.
Scientists are trying to explain how whale bones ended up so far inland: Did the sea reach as far as where these bones were found two or three thousand years ago? “It’s very unlikely: there would be other chemical and physical characteristics in the surrounding geology, which aren’t evident,” says Wooller.
Was there ever a major earthquake that triggered a tsunami, and did a giant wave carry them 400 kilometers inland? “Very unlikely, because we would see evidence of such a flood in the sediments,” he replies.
Were these whale bones transported by humans? “It’s likely that they were transported by humans in the past.” Any other hypotheses? “There are a few. Among them, a cataloging error.”
Cataloging errors in museums can be explained by the fact that the technological and scientific resources available today did not exist in the past. But they highlight the need to re-evaluate museum holdings and collections.
Matthew Wooller comments: “Although it’s believed that mammoths on the mainland went extinct 13,000 years ago, there are islands like St. Paul where they survived for thousands of years afterward. They were still alive in some very remote parts of Alaska. The question is whether they were in the most remote areas of mainland Alaska. That’s the mission of our Adopt-a-Mammoth project.” “We continue to investigate using specimens archived in museum collections,” Wooller continues. “These collections contain all sorts of new and exciting things to discover. The first step is to date each specimen: this is where the scientific fun begins and where this story took off. All museums review their collections and update them as new data emerges.”
