Adopted “mammoths” from Alaska turn out to be a whale’s tale

Radiocarbon-dated fossils indicate woolly mammoths were extirpated from mainland Beringia around 13 000 years ago. However, environmental DNA in permafrost suggests small “cryptic“ populations survived into the Holocene. Resolving this discrepancy is crucial to understanding the drivers of mammoth extinction. The Adopt-a-Mammoth project, launched in 2022, is increasing the number of radiocarbon-dated mammoth fossils to locate the chronologically youngest specimens. Here, we report results from two “mammoth“ vertebral epiphyseal plates from interior Alaska that produced the youngest radiocarbon ages associated with mammoth specimens (~1900–2700 cal a BP). However, isotopic data indicated that these individuals consumed marine resources, and subsequent ancient DNA analysis revealed the specimens were in fact from a North Pacific Right whale and a Minke whale. Solving the mystery of recent “mammoth” fossils raised new questions. How did the remains of ancient whales become emplaced in sediment so far from the coastline? We briefly consider four scenarios to account for this.

Details