An other type of grave robbing: mammoth tusks

[Jean-Loup]

This may be saving some elephants, but must be an absolute catastrophe from an archeological point of view:


<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1Russia </st1:country-region></ST1digs up woolly mammoth remains for guilt-free ivory <O</O

<st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1Russia</ST1</st1:country-region> is mining the remains of its long extinct woolly mammoths to meet a growing demand for ethical ivory<O</O


<O</O
Taking advantage of a global ban on the trade in elephant ivory, Russia is gambling that ivory lovers around the world will pay a premium for ethically friendly mammoth ivory instead. <O</O
Michelle Obama, the US First Lady, has been spotted wearing jewellery crafted from the mammoth ivory. <O</O
<O</O
It is exporting 60 tons of mammoth ivory to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1China</ST1</st1:country-region>, the world's biggest ivory market, per year, and scientists estimate there is plenty more where that came from. <O</O
In fact, they believe there may be as many as 150 million dead mammoths frozen beneath the Siberian tundra just waiting to be dug up. <O></O>
"Every year, from mid-June, when the tundra melts, until mid-September, hundreds if not thousands of mostly local people scour the tundra in northern <ST1Siberia</ST1 looking for mammoth tusks," a new report on the subject said. <O</O
Woolly mammoths are thought to have first appeared on the earth 4.8 million years ago and to have finally become extinct at least 3,600 years ago. <O</O
Yet as the permafrost beneath the Siberian tundra melts due to global warming their sometimes well-preserved remains are surfacing with growing frequency. <O</O
It is a phenomenon that has <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1Russia</ST1</st1:country-region>'s businessmen rubbing their hands together as mammoth ivory can command a much higher price than elephant ivory and sells for as much as £330 per kilogram. <O</O
Elephant conservationists are hoping that the guilt-free mammoth ivory trade continues to flourish and eventually squeezes out the illegal trade in elephant tusks altogether. <O</O
"The large quantities of mammoth tusks imported into Hong Kong, which are mostly sent to the Chinese mainland for carving, probably reduce demand for elephant ivory from Africa," the report, in a specialist journal called Pachyderm, concluded. <O</O
"This may in the long run lower elephant ivory prices and reduce incentives to poach elephants." <O</O

[pzrwest]

How does one tell the difference between mammoth ivory and elephant ivory? I feel if the sale of ivory is banned then all ivory should be included.

[Don D.]

Evidently tons of the stuff is just laying around.

[Jean-Loup]

Hey Don, at 330 pounds per kilo, I doubt much is just lying around. Even if a lot is, this is a huge motivation for people to start digging and searching more agressively. Considering how things work in Russia, I doubt archeologists will be informed if a nice frozzen specimen of mammoth is found.
I have to say having some mammoth ivory must be pretty cool though!

JL

[afrikasandman]

I would love to purchase an entire mammoth tusk, very cool display piece for sure. Don't agree with the digging up to sell it to meet an demand like that though. Matt

[Bond]

As an Archaeologist, I think the digging up of mammoth ivory to feed the markets of the east is despicable and any archaeological information associated with the mammoth remains will be destroyed and lost for ever.

Jerry

[Simon O.]

There was a documentary in the UK about this not so long ago. With the numbers present, of course that's way beyond what's of interest to paleontologists. Those that go looking for tusks are also very well aware that any mummified remains are worth far more.

I saw a lot of the results of the work for sale in Hong Kong this year and must say the craftsmen produce some stunning pieces. There is a difference between new and prehistoric ivory but off the top of my head i can't remember what that is.

[sscrooge]

Its bad for archaelogical history to be lost but surely if an extinct animals tusks can save the elephant from going the same way it has to be good , rgds Dave

[N.C. Wyeth]

Evidently tons of the stuff is just laying around.

There are many gravel quarries near my home. From one quarry in particular (Camp Dennison), I know of at least (3) incidents where entire and/or partial mastodons were unearthed during the gravel digging process . . . with an untold amount of others rumored to have been found over the many years while the quarry was still in business (the place is now a City Park). I was fortunate (?) enough to have been present during the finding of one mastodon that still had both tusks, of which saving the entire specimen intact was a great success. The other two mastodons were mostly destroyed by the gravel-bucket before they were recognized, leaving only broken pieces of bone and tusk behind . . . of which I still have many small sections of both somewhere at home. A few of the pieces I even "inscribed" myself when I brought them home as a kid . . . after being in the groundwater for so long, the bone and tusk were actually very brittle and "chalky", and very easy to break or scratch a design into. In time, the pieces hardened, and they do seem now like rather fine specimens of genuine mastodon bone and tusk. I will have to dig them up some day and post a few photos . . .

Never really thought much about the value of mastodon tusk . . . I guess it would be interesting to someone? For me, it was only a trivial find, these mastodons . . . at the time, I was much more interested in digging for Civil War-era cannon-balls buried in the hillside on the other side of the gravel pits. I have never really understood the fascination with ivory . . . and hopefully, never will.

[Simon O.]

I know fishermen in the North Sea bring up tusks and other bones etc. from time to time, when sea levels were much lower and the UK was attached to the continent.