Columbian mammoths died out roughly 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. Woolly mammoths outlived them by around 6,000 years.
The tusk was strongly curved. Two tusks would’ve come close to making a complete circle. According to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, this trait helped researchers figure out that the tusk was from a mammoth and not a mastodon.
Templeton and a team of field scientists dug out the tusk by hand. The team also placed aluminum foil around it and covered it with white plaster to protect the fossil during extraction and transportation.
The tusk weighed 600 pounds with its plaster coating. Currently, it is at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, where it will be studied closely and treated for preservation.
