Milwaukee Museum Unveils Mammoth

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The New York Sun

A 14,500-year-old woolly mammoth skeleton dug up in 1994 has been unveiled at the Milwaukee Public Museum, giving locals a glimpse of perhaps the most intact specimen discovered in North America.

Few paleontological specimens are as complete as the Hebior mammoth. The skeleton lacks a rib as well as a few bones in the tail and feet, but is otherwise nearly whole.

Standing more than twice the height of an average person, the woolly mammoth is among three with scientific significance for southern Wisconsin.

It’s not clear whether the mammoth had been hunted or died of some other cause. Besides evidence of arthritis in its feet, scientists say little else is known about the male beast.

Small gouges on the bones suggest the meat was scraped off with human tools, meaning people lived in the upper Midwest at least 1,000 years earlier than previously believed, the vice president of museum programs, Carter Lupton, said.


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