North America, Alaska, Pleistocene epoch (Ice Age), ca. 35,000 years ago. A section of a tusk from a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), mainly creamy brown, with some hints of a blue-green color. The same Alaskan mineral deposits that led to the gold rush of the 1890s has turned this huge mammoth tusk its distinctive blue green through the process of mineralization - after the animal's death, the tusk lay in soil containing the mineral Vivianite, which occurs near mineral ores, as in gold mines. Size: 25" L x 2.9" W (63.5 cm x 7.4 cm); 19.75" H (50.2 cm) on included custom stand.
While mammoths survived until ca. 5600 years ago on remote Alaskan islands, those animals had begun to shrink in size as the climate warmed from the end of the Ice Age ca. 10,000 years ago. A tusk of this size comes from deep within the Pleistocene, when the northern hemisphere was dominated by massive ice sheets drained by enormous glacial rivers and lakes. Imagine encountering this animal on an Ice Age steppe, towering up to 13 feet at the shoulder and weighing up to 12 tons, with this tusk and its partner rising in an upward curve from their jaw. Imagine the strength the animal's neck must have had just to hold up these massive teeth!
Please note that fossilized ivory tusks from any species cannot be shipped to the US States of California, Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington State. As of 2019, they will not be able to be shipped to Illinois.
Provenance: private Hagar Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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#127524
Condition
This is the tip of a full tusk, with a clean cut at the wide end. Polished, smooth, intact surface.