PART OF MAMMOTH TUSK - 40,000 years old - Oxfordshire
« backPART OF A WOOLLY MAMMOTH TUSK
About 40,000 years old
Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire.
A section of a tusk of a young woolly mammoth with one cut face showing the structure of the tusk. It is poorly preserved but has been treated with a preservative to prevent it cracking.
Mammoth tusks, teeth and bones have been found in gravel pits in the Thames valley, dating from a cold period of the Ice Age. Most of these fossils are now in museums, and were found when the pits were worked by hand. With mechanical excavation of the gravel such finds are now rare.
Unlike the tusks of elephants, the tusks of the mammoth had a distinctive corkscrew twist. Tusks were probably used in fighting, and also in feeding as they are often found to be scratched or polished where they would have touched the ground.
Size: 9 x 6.5 x 5.5 centimetres
Weight: 230 grams
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