The remains of a mammoth dating back at least 10,000 years have been found in the Mexican state of Puebla, as reported by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of the North American country. “It is possibly an elderly male Columbian mammoth that lived approximately 10,000 years ago“, has pointed out the INAH.
This discovery took place at the beginning of October, although it was announced this Wednesday, in the new municipal cemetery of Los Reyes de Juárez, located east of Puebla. The find happened “while a pantheon man prepared more burial pits“His backhoe ran into what he thought was a root, but when he pushed.”dozens of fragments jumped out that appeared to be bones of considerable size and weight“, according to the INAH.
After that, he notified the authorities of his finding, who appeared at the scene and, after a first exploration, determined that they were “Pleistocene megafauna bones, which existed for at least 10,000 years. “Then they carried out the paleontological excavation, in which a first defense (which is usually confused with a tusk) of 2.90 meters was found and a second that broke the machine. Thanks to this, they determined that it was a mammoth.
Cleaning and analysis to know the specimen
In addition to defenses, they recovered fragmented skull, 70% of the pelvis and some rib fragments. The most complete of the latter still retains 60% of its original size. After recovering all these pieces, the authorities transferred them to the INAH Puebla Center. As reported by the entity, the skull was removed in a box of hardened sediment to avoid deteriorating it and it will be thoroughly cleaned in the laboratory, as well as the rest of the bones, to prevent the change in humidity from affecting them.
Iván Alarcón, a Mexican biologist from INAH who was in charge of identifying the bone pieces, has pointed out that, after cleaning and stabilizing the remains, an exhaustive analysis will be carried out to confirm basic data of this specimen, such as its age, its sex and the species of mammoth to which it belongs.
