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MUSEUM EXHIBITION GRADE WOOLLY MAMMOTH UPPER AND LOWER MOLAR TEETH IN EDUCATIONAL "LIVING POSITION" DISPLAY North Sea, Holland LATE PLEISTOCENE PERIOD: 200,000 - 20,000 years ago SPECIAL NOTE: Despite the ignorance and misinformation propagated by some fossil dealers, ALL mammoth teeth found in wet deposits such as rivers, quarries, frozen Siberian tundra, as well as the North Sea, MUST be specially dried and treated to stabilize them and prevent them from falling apart over time. (To learn more about the true nature in which fossils are found in Siberia, CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE. Siberian mammoth teeth from thawed and formerly FROZEN tundra are NOT stone and are NOT petrified. They are organic and water-logged when collected just like North Sea teeth.) IF MAMMOTH TEETH FOSSIL ARE NOT SPECIALLY TREATED AND STABILIZED, ALMOST ALL WILL EVENTUALLY CRACK AND FALL APART OVER TIME. Only time will prove this true but you are taking a huge risk if you buy untreated teeth from any wet environment source. At Paleo Direct, ALL our Mammoth teeth are dried for at least one year prior to selling to ensure against disintegration. They are then chemically treated in multiple steps with multiple types of hardener to protect their intact nature. We guarantee your tooth will not fall apart. If you purchase a Woolly Mammoth fossil tooth without the dealer performing this lengthy drying process and treatment, cracks will likely grow and it WILL likely fall apart as the tooth can take an extremely long time for the core to fully dry. WOOLLY MAMMOTH TEETH are a popular display fossil of any collection. The famous Wooly mammoth can be considered the mascot animal of the Earth's final Ice Age and this massive beast most certainly gained respect to all that got in its way including both Neanderthals and modern humans. With this listing we offer an amazing specimen, perfect for museum exhibitions to demonstrate prehistoric elephant dental anatomy and the mechanics of chewing. This is a unique display specimen set of an UPPER AND LOWER MOLAR TOOTH from a EUROPEAN Woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, of the last Ice Age. No compromises in quality were made in this set - BOTH TEETH ARE THE FINEST POSSIBLE GRADE examples with amazing delicate root anatomy and perfect and complete chewing cusps. Rarely, are Woolly Mammoth teeth like this ever found from European deposits. The stand holds the upper molar in the proper position over the lower molar as they would have been in the skull of a living Woolly Mammoth. Such an exhibit allows the viewer to see the difference in the shape of the upper and lower teeth as well as how the molars articulated with one another when the mammoth chewed. Both molars are heavy and solid, of the highest preservation. Cracks have been filled and stabilized. These woolly mammoth teeth are complete with NO REPAIR AND NO FABRICATION. 100% GENUINE! Chewing surfaces are complete and intact. The Woolly mammoth these teeth came from died with them in its jaw as proven by the presence of full roots which are lacking in ejected "spit" teeth. These are not common "spit" teeth you often see sold for a fraction of the price of these fine specimens. Both teeth have been subjected to the required stabilization process all museum fossils are treated with to preserve and guarantee their extraordinary condition. A beautiful custom made stand is included as shown hand-crafted out of hardwood and stainless steel.
Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) were first recorded in Eurasian deposits of the second to the last Ice Age, approximately 150,000 years ago. Woolly mammoths descended from the Steppe mammoths (Mammuthus trogontherii). Over time, the cheek teeth of Woolly mammoths evolved into a design of more numerous and tightly arranged enamel plates with less thickness. The tusks of the Woolly mammoth developed a more dramatic curvature and their overall body size decreased. These changes were advantageous in surviving the increasingly cold conditions of the last Ice Age. Such teeth modifications enabled the Woolly mammoths to chew tougher tundra vegetation. The reduction of body size accompanied by the reduction of the ears and trunk along with the development of a thicker pelt enabled the mammoths to survive in the harshness of a frozen world. A full grown Woolly mammoth stood around 10 - 12 feet high at the shoulder and weighed in at 6 - 8 tons. Despite connotations of the word "mammoth" indicating immense proportions, the Woolly mammoth is actually not the largest mammoth that ever lived. The Imperial mammoth was the largest and the North American Columbian mammoth was even larger than the Woolly mammoth. The Woolly mammoth was about the same size as a present day Indian elephant but with a layer of fat and fur. Preserved carcasses have been found in frozen tundra which allows us to know what the heavy coat of the Woolly mammoth was like. Their fur was similar to that of the musk ox, consisting of long, dark hairs and fine under wool, with dark-grey skin and an insulating fat layer. It is most likely that Woolly mammoths molted in summer like Musk oxen. Another prominent feature of the Woolly mammoth was a high-domed skull with high-peaked shoulders resulting from the long spines of the neck vertebrae likely to anchor a large fat deposit.
Mammoths were herbivores. The teeth of a mammoth are amongst the most bizarre teeth of any animal ever known. From the side, they resemble an extended accordion and are made up of a row of vertically oriented attached plates that when worn, create a washboard-like grinding surface. This surface was ideally suited to grinding up hard-to-digest foods such as tough grasses and other thick vegetation. A mammoth has four teeth in its skull, two uppers (one on each side) and two lowers. Over the course of the life of the animal, six sets of teeth will grow, a worn set being pushed forward and out to make room for a new and unworn set. This characteristic is still true of modern elephants. A baby mammoth at age 6 will have already had three sets of teeth. By 13 years of age, the fourth set emerges followed by a fifth set at age 27 years. The final set of teeth come in around 43 years of age and as it wears away, the animal eventually starves to death and dies on average between 60 and 80 years of age. Interestingly, the animal's life is limited by the fact that after the sixth set, no new teeth grow in to replace the final worn down set and the animal is no longer able to chew its food. Mammoth teeth can also tell us the age and species of the creature. Scientists can approximate age by comparing the length and width of the molars to corresponding age and tooth size charts from modern elephants. The species is determined by the number of ridges found in the first four inches of the flat chewing surface.
It is believed that the end of the last Ice Age and the warming of the Earth caused the Woolly mammoths to die out at the end of the Pleistocene Period. The DNA of an extinct wooly mammoth is 95% identical to an Indian elephant. With recent discoveries of wooly mammoth remains frozen in tundra, there are ongoing attempts to clone intact DNA with that of the modern Indian elephant. Woolly mammoth remains have been found in northern regions of North America, Eurasia and Europe. EXHIBITION GRADE - THE FINEST SET OF BOTH UPPER AND LOWER EUROPEAN WOOLLY MAMMOTH TEETH IN A "LIVING" DISPLAY 11" long lower molar and 7.25" long upper molar SOLD LM8-097 INCLUDES CUSTOM MUSEUM STAND Actual Item - One Only |
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Emerging 55 million
years ago, the group of mammals called Proboscideans are identified by
the presence of tusks and a trunk and include mammoths, mastodons and
elephants. The oldest mammoth remains have placed the beginnings
of the beasts in Africa but eventually, they migrated to Europe and
Asia. Around 1.7 million years ago, the Ancestral mammoth began
reaching North America and later evolved into the Columbian mammoth,
otherwise known as the American mammoth. 
Woolly
mammoths had smaller ears and a shorter trunk than modern-day elephants.
Many Woolly mammoths have been found with large, elaborately curved
tusks. Both the males and females possessed tusks, but the
females’ tusks were smaller. Tusks began to form at birth and
continued growing throughout life, adding about a 1/4 inch a year in
thickness as they grew. Most of the tusk is comprised of a
material called dentin but in layman's terms, we call it ivory.
The undersides of Woolly mammoth tusks often show wear, suggesting that
they were used in scraping snow and ice off ground cover vegetation
during feeding. Woolly mammoths also use their tusks for
protection against predators, attraction during mating and as a display
of dominance to other Woolly mammoths. The longest tusk ever found
was almost 16 feet and weighs 208 pounds.
In
the latter years of the last Ice Age, the Woolly mammoth co-existed with
humans such as the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon people.
Prehistoric cave paintings in France and Spain have been found with
images of the Woolly mammoth including hunting scenes. Throughout
world regions where Woolly mammoths existed at the same times as humans,
kill sites have been discovered where mammoth carcasses had been
butchered. At these sites, scientists have found both
