15,000-year-old mammoth tooth found in Bashkiria

A new unique exhibit - a whole 30-centimeter mammoth tooth will replenish today the fund of the National Museum of Bashkiria. It was found on the banks of the Ufimka River, near the Green Cape garden partnership, by a resident Ildus Vinogradov.

Ildus Vinogradov posted his find in a gardening chat. Archaeologists have previously determined that the tooth is about 15,000 years old. It is valuable because it has been preserved intact.

“Such mammoths lived more than one and a half million - one million three hundred thousand years ago. In Eurasia, on the territory of the Southern Urals, they came about 300 thousand years ago and died out somewhere 10-11 thousand years ago. Teeth are well preserved, they are often found on the banks of reservoirs, in quarries - they are washed out by the water,” Elvira Khaziakhmetova, head of the nature department of the National Museum RB, commented to the Bashinform News Agency.

According to the specialist, one can already imagine by the teeth how huge the animals were: one and a half to two times more than modern elephants. The mammoths were 5-5.5 meters tall and weighed 14-15 tons. 1 tooth weighed about 5-6 and even more kilograms. The length of the found tooth is more than 30 cm, which means that it was a tooth of a fairly large animal.

The collection of the National Museum in the hall of paleontology already has similar fossil finds: skulls, tibia, and humerus, there is a jaw with teeth and separate fragments of teeth. Now the collection will be complemented by a whole mammoth tooth.

Author: Leila Aralbaeva