Scientists have unveiled the oldest woolly mammoth specimen ever discovered in North America as part of a major DNA study spanning a million years of mammoth evolution.
Oldest Woolly Mammoth in North America Discovered — And It’s Rewriting History
A newly unearthed 216,000-year-old woolly mammoth tooth from the Old Crow River in Canada’s Yukon territory has pushed back the species’ arrival in North America by over 100,000 years, according to a groundbreaking new study.
Led by Camilo Chacón-Duque of Stockholm University’s Centre for Palaeogenetics, the team extracted ancient DNA from the tooth and confirmed it belonged to a true woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), not a related species. This makes it the oldest physically confirmed woolly mammoth fossil ever found on the continent.
The study also involved analyzing mitochondrial genomes from 34 new samples and over 200 previously known ones to build a deeper picture of mammoth evolution. Using a combination of radiocarbon and molecular clock dating, the researchers refined a method to more accurately date “deep-time” DNA—pushing the boundaries of how far back ancient genomes can be timed.
The findings revealed that mammoth genetic diversity fluctuated with Earth’s climate, thriving during cold glacial periods and shrinking during warm spells. While mammoths originally evolved in Africa, they gradually moved northward and adapted to cold over millions of years.
Previously, scientists believed woolly mammoths entered North America only between 120,000 and 10,000 years ago, but the Old Crow discovery proves they were present at least 216,000 years ago — possibly even earlier, based on indirect genetic evidence.
Most mammoths vanished around 10,500 years ago, though small populations survived in Alaska and Siberia until about 4,000 years ago. This new research confirms a much longer and richer evolutionary history for these Ice Age icons than anyone previously thought.