Archaeologica.org

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/ ... e=fullpage

Prehistoric bones are not very hard to find, he says. The permafrost is thawing and breaking up so rapidly that in certain places in the tundra bones poke out through the soil every few metres. Some just lie on the surface.

Vatagin pays between $10 and $190 for a kilogram of mammoth bones. But it takes a keen eye and local knowledge to find the really valuable stuff.

Tusks, sometimes curled almost into a circle and reaching up to five metres in length, are the most prized finds. A pair of good tusks is a rarity; two tusks and a well-preserved skull can be worth a fortune.

This article is about a fellow making very good money collecting Mammoth ivory. But it points out that the permafrost is melting and we are soon going to be able to see the extent of this huge extinction.

Many authors have speculated about the sudden calamity that seems to have occured to these animals in Siberia, as if they were thrown into a sudden deep-freeze. Soon, this may not be speculation, if scientists can examine these "killing fields" and measure when they died and what may have killed them.

This could solve a very old mystery. It will probably take a while to melt all of the permafrost. In the meantime, something should be done to stop the fortune hunters from stripping the land bare. But we know how that goes.

As a collector of the Colt Single Action Army revolver, the old African ivory grips on a pistol brings a premium. Today, with the US ban on African ivory, a large market exists for grips using mammoth ivory. $1000.00 per set is common. The only answer is to ban all ivory from importing into the US. What to do with Alaska is a political matter.

Russia has so many problems that guarding prehistoric bone yards has to be pretty low on the list.

It'll help take the pressure off of Elephants, and if there is that much lying around the price will probably bomb.

Late pleistocene communal human dwellings in the Ukraine were constructed of dozens, even hundreds of mammoth tusks, used as timbers. Building materials.
Mammoth tusks were never scarce, it seems.

I've bought jewelry (not for me for gifts) made from Mammoth Ivory-it's lovely stuff.

No shortage now it's easily available on line.

The market will regulate itself.
If they dig up too much, the price will drop to the oint that it isn't worth digging up anymore.

Interesting topic. Commercialising ancient ivory is certainly much more palapable than shooting and multilating bull elephants or walrus (walruses?) but where does such exploitation end? We already have some groups grinding up petrified bones for virility elixers. Archaeological sites the world over could be subject ot some kind of commercial plunder.

Forum Monk wrote:
Archaeological sites the world over could be subject ot some kind of commercial plunder.

"Could"?
Archaeological sites the world over have been the subject of commercial plunder since the year dot!
Afaik all known pharaoh tombs – with the notable exception of Tut Ankh Amun – were plundered.

And "commercial plunder" is a euphemism for grave robbing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070927/sc_ ... iD6iYE1vAI

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists who pulled DNA from the hair shafts of 13 Siberian woolly mammoths said on Thursday it may be possible to mine museums for genetic information about ancient and even extinct species.

The oldest verified DNA comes from the bones of Neanderthal humans who lived in Europe 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, and from a 40,000-year-old cave bear bone.

Scientists have found preserved tissue in 68 million-year-old dinosaur bones but have not yet reported finding intact DNA in the samples

Mammoth DNA from hair samples.

Let's grow one!

A hair?

John Hawks provides a little more info on DNA from hair.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/biot ... _2007.html

Contamination from bacteria DNA generally make up 50 to more than 90 percent of the raw DNA extracted from the bone and muscles of ancient specimens, [University of Copenhagen reseracher Tom] Gilbert said. In contrast, more than 90 percent of the DNA extracted from hairs taken from woolly mammoth specimens in the new study belonged to the extinct mega-mammals themselves.

That's good. Who would want to grow a Wooly Bacterium?

An adult Woolly Bacterium I guess.