Construction crews uncover tusk of Ice Age mammoth in Seattle

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

By Eric M. Johnson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Construction workers digging in a Seattle neighborhood have found the curved tusk of a mammoth, an ancient elephant relative that inhabited North America at least 10,000 years ago during the Ice Age.

Seattle's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture said its paleontologists were confident that the fossil, uncovered on Tuesday, came from an Ice Age mammoth.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

"The discovery of a mammoth tusk in South Lake Union is a rare opportunity to directly study Seattle's ancient natural history," said curator Dr Christian Sidor.

Crews were excavating for plumbing trenches in the city's bustling South Lake Union neighborhood when they found the tusk about 40 feet beneath ground level, said Jeff Estep, president of Transit Plumbing Inc, the subcontracting company involved in the dig.

"They hit something hard, uncovered it and saw it was long and a weird shape," Estep said. "They kept uncovering it by hand and realized it was a tusk."

The fossil was found on private property and likely not associated with an archaeological site, leaving it up to the landowner to decide what to do with the finding, according to the museum.

Mammoths, which were closely related to elephants, grew up to 12 feet at the shoulder and had a pair of long tusks that curved down from the face and upward at their ends. They arrived in North America from Asia about 2 million years ago, according to the museum.

They became extinct as the glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age, between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, the museum said.

The Ice Age typically refers to the Pleistocene epoch, which began about 1.6 million years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky in Olympia; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Amanda Kwan)

It’s Time to Stand Up for Science

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.

I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.

If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.

In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.

There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Thank you,

David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American