"They did not live in Alaska during full glacial periods between 75,000 and 10,000 Were only temporary inhabitants of what became Alaska and the Yukon during warm spells “It turns out that some of the previous dates were inaccurate and underestimated theĪctual time mastodons lived in these areas,” Druckenmiller said. Set out to re-date mastodon fossils from Alaska and the Yukon using new and more accurate The team of scientists, led by Yukon Palaeontology Program paleontologist Grant Zazula, Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was used in a recent study revising the age of mastodons This mastodon tooth is in the earth sciences collection at In these regions during the height of the last ice age, when much of the land wasĬovered in cold, dry grasslands - called steppes - not forests. ButĮxisting radiocarbon dates of Arctic and sub-Arctic mastodons suggested they lived Stems of shrubs and trees, unlike their grazing relatives, the woolly mammoths. Paleontologists know about changes in the mastodons' habitat during the ice age.ĭruckenmiller said American mastodons were browsers, feeding on leaves, twigs, and Members Patrick Druckenmiller, Pam Groves and Dan Mann, report that northern mastodonįossils are much older than previously thought. The new dates better match what what In a recent publication of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers, including University of Alaska Fairbanks faculty Revised age estimates of American mastodon fossils in Alaska and Yukon have resolvedĪ quandary about when these extinct relatives of elephants lived. New dates for northern mastodon fossils resolve quandary
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