50,000-Year-Old Baby Mammoth Remains Found in Siberia

Scientists from Russia’s North-Eastern Federal University have unveiled the remains of a baby mammoth found in the Siberian permafrost. The mammoth is in a remarkable state of preservation, complete with soft tissue and viable DNA.

The mammoth is estimated to have died at around a year old some 50,000 years ago, and is an exceptionally rare find. Only six similar discoveries (five in Russia and one in Canada) have been found to date.

The mammoth, named “Yana” by the team from North-Eastern Federal University after the area in which she was found, is perhaps the best preserved of the whole bunch, and the team behind the discovery certainly think so. But it is something of a miracle that she was ever recovered at all.

• The Radioactive Guardian of the Egyptian Afterlife
• Pellagra: The Mystery Disease that Brought Monsters to Europe

The carcass was found in thawing permafrost: having been preserved for tens of thousands of years in permanently frozen subsoils, she was exposed as the layers started to thaw for the first time. Most such remains exposed to the surface are eaten by local animal predators, but in this instance locals managed to save her first.

Even the trunk, usually the first part of a mammoth carcass to be eaten by predators, was preserved. The carcass at the point of recovery was almost completely thawed and rapid action needed to be taken to halt any decay of the remains. 

In all Yana stands some 120cm at the shoulder, and weighs maybe 180kg. She is currently being subjected to a battery of tests to confirm when she died, and to find out as much as possible about her and the environment in which she lived.

Mammoths are often touted as the preferred candidate for resurrection using modern science, along the lines of Jurassic Park but sadly without a shirtless Jeff Goldblum. Although such research remains firmly in the realm of science fiction for the moment, in theory mammoth remains such as Yana are exactly what is required to extract the necessary DNA.

However the clock is ticking for such discoveries. Global warming has led to a radical thawing of permafrost across the globe, and everything from Incan mummies high in the Andes to other ancient animal remains are starting to thaw, and decay. If this process continues, anything we don’t find in the next decade or so will thaw, rot, and be lost forever.

Header Image: The baby mammoth has been named Yana after the river basin in which she was found. Source: North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk/AFP.