TOOTH OF A YOUNG WOOLLY MAMMOTH - about 20,000 years old - Dredged from the floor of the North Sea
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About 20,000 years old
Dredged from the North Sea, off Lowestoft
A very fine example of a mammoth tooth, almost complete and in good condition.
Fossil mammoth teeth are occasionally dredged off the Brown Bank in the North Sea by fishing vessels and date from a time when the North Sea was dry land.
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MAMMOTH TEETH
A mammoth’s molar teeth consisted of enamel ridges separated by dentine and as the teeth grind together the ridges break up the food. Mammoth teeth were very resistant to wear because their diet consisted of tough grass, which contained grit. A mammoth had six sets of teeth in its life and at any one time only one tooth was in use on each side of the lower and upper jaws. As each tooth wore down it was pushed up until it was discarded and replaced with a new one from behind. |
Mammoth bones and teeth are relatively young in geological terms and so are only partially fossilised. For this reason they are usually treated with a preservative to prevent them cracking.
Size: 13 x 13 x 6.5 centimetres
Weight: 922 grams
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