An exceptionally complete woolly mammoth tusk was recovered from Last Chance Creek, Yukon Territory in July 2002. The tusk is associated with peat dated to 25,700 ± 400 14C years BP, allowing a rare comparison between Pleistocene megafauna and local vegetation. Preliminary analyses of plant and insect macrofossils indicate a mosaic of riparian meadows and well-drained grasslands, supporting the existence of the 'Mammoth-Steppe' biome near the onset of the last glaciation.
Use Cases
- Reconstructing paleoenvironments based on plant and insect macrofossil assemblages.
- Correlating megafauna presence with vegetation cover during the Pleistocene.
- Modeling the 'Mammoth-Steppe' biome based on fossil evidence from peat.
- Analyzing the relationship between mammoth fossils and dated peat layers.
Strengths
- Contains an exceptionally complete mammoth tusk from a mature male.
- Peat associated with the tusk is dated to 25,700 ± 400 14C years BP.
- Provides a rare direct association of Pleistocene fossils with past vegetation.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to a single site in Yukon.
Provenance
- Source
- Government of Yukon
- Collection Method
- Recovered from a placer mining exposure.
- Time Range
- Approximately 25,700 years BP (Pleistocene)
- Geography
- Last Chance Creek, Yukon Territory, Canada