Ancient giant teeth in northeastern Canada offer clues about Ice Age life

A worn mammoth tooth discovered about 150 years ago on an island in Nunavut offers new insights into where and how the Ice Age giants died.

A study led by McGill has reclassified the 1878 find, originally thought to be a massive, older, cold-blooded woolly mammoth (Mammoths primigenus) from Columbia, making it the most northeastern woolly mammoth in North America. The tooth, found on Nunavut Long Island, Nunavut near the confluence of Hudson and James Bays, was first described in 1898 by Robert Bell, director of the Geological Survey of Canada.

Published in research Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

Huge map rewrite

New analysis suggests the woolly mammoth was further east than once known.

“This shows us that there are still discoveries to be made across eastern Canada,” said Louis-Philippe Bateman, the study’s lead author and a master’s student in the Department of Biology who worked with Professor Hans Larsen on the research. “Now that we know that only mammoths are likely here, it’s very tempting to go out and find something else. They can change places very unexpectedly!”

Stable isotope testing has also revealed that the animals’ final days may have been difficult. Her nitrogen levels were higher than expected, which could indicate malnutrition.

“We interpreted this as a sign that it was under some kind of enormous nutritional stress. It had to catabolize its tissues to survive,” Bettman said.

‘High-stakes dentistry on precious fossil remains’

To evaluate the specimen, the research team reexamined its shape, dated the fossil, and analyzed its isotopes to infer climate and diet.

“This was the first project I worked on as an undergraduate student,” recalled the lead author. “I skipped class, hopped on a bus, and visited the Canadian Museum of Nature collection in Gatineau, where I took hundreds of photos of the tooth and other very large teeth.”

Later, the team sampled the fossil for isotopic analysis, a delicate procedure compared to “high-end dentistry on precious fossil remains,” Bateman said.

The tests show that it typically ate Ice Age plants, grasses, and some other plants, and probably lived in an interglacial period between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago, when the region was ice-free and as warm as today.

This finding highlights the enduring value of museum collections.

“A specimen kept for nearly 150 years still has secrets to uncover,” Bateman said. “Studying them can give us insight into how organisms evolve and respond to climate change.”