How To Raise The Mammoth

The documentary, “Raising the Mammoth”, discusses the journey that a group of scientists take in order to find and raise an extinct woolly mammoth from the tundra. This video relates to what we learned in class about fossils and discovery for many reasons. One way that this video relates to our studies in class is because the scientists discussed all of the different ways that the fossil of the mammoth can aid in discovering new information about it’s life. In the video they discussed how they knew that the Jarkov Mammoth, named after the Dolgan reindeer, was an adult male which lived bout 20, 830 years ago. They could tell this based on the hair of the mammoth, the viruses and bacteria that remained in the carcass which helped them determine its estimated time of death, DNA strands, the content of the stomach which allow the scientists to study the mammoth’s diet, and the ridges in the teeth. Using this information the scientists also discovered that the mammoth’s origins trace back to Asia where the mammoth crossed the Bering Strait and thrived in North America. Based on the positioning of the mammoth’s petrified fossil in the large block, the scientists also determined that the Jarkov Mammoth died after drowning in a pond which eventually froze creating permafrost .