Lot 130A
North America, Alaska, Pleistocene period, ca. 40,000 years ago. A caudal vertebrae from a mammoth. The bone has absorbed iron from the surrounding soil, giving it a rust color. Caudal vertebrae tend to lose some of their features the further from the base of the tail they go, because they need to support fewer muscles and nerves the further down the tail they are. This one seems to be from fairly high up in the tail, when it still needed to support weight. The vertebrae here has fused epiphyses, visible when looking at it head on, which indicates that it was from a mature adult animal rather than a juvenile. Size: 15" L x 8.75" W x 12.5" H (38.1 cm x 22.2 cm x 31.8 cm); 15" H (38.1 cm) on included custom stand.
Imagine walking in a modern Arctic or sub-Arctic landscape like Alaska, northern Canada, or Siberia and finding bones like this one rising from the ground - the name mammoth comes from a Siberian word used to describe the tusks found there by native people, like the Khanty of the Irtysh River basin, and traded to Europe and China. Their occasional finds of massive tusks and preserved mammoth bodies in the permafrost - often eroding out of the sides of river banks - led to their folkloric belief that mammoths were like huge rodents, dwelling underground, dying when they accidentally surfaced.
Provenance: private Hagar Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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#127519
- Condition: Repaired from multiple pieces. Repairs are well done and unobtrusive. Transverse processes are both lost as is the top of the spinous process.
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