Dig May Have Bared A Wooly Mammoth

Archaeologists expecting to excavate the remains of Columbian mammoths at Tolo Lake this summer may have located a rare woolly mammoth in a backhoe trench.

Lee Sappington of the University of Idaho said bones suspected to be a woolly mammoth were found in an extended portion of the Mammoth 3 pit, where archaeology students have been working to find traces of humans associated with Columbian mammoths found earlier.

“It looks to me like we have a couple different kinds of mammoths out there,” Sappington said Monday.

“That also means we may have had changing environments,” he said. “Different species of mammoths are going to have different habitats, so there’s probably good evidence of a longer time period and also a subtle change in the environment.”

The mammoth dig is a joint venture between the University of Idaho and Idaho State University.

Although woolly mammoths are better known by the public than other types, their remains have been found only in Canada and Maine, Yohe said.

If the Tolo Lake fossil turns out to be a woolly mammoth, it would be the first such find in the Pacific Northwest.

Two nearly complete mammoths have been recovered.

Their bones were discovered last summer during an Idaho Fish and Game project to improve the lake’s fish habitat. That project has been on hold during the digs.

Robert Yohe of the Idaho State Historical Society said operations should be closing down within the next three weeks. Directors will then discuss the dig’s future.