Mammoth ivory excavated in Alaska for jewelry, curios
Jeannette J. Lee /Associated Press May. 28, 2006 12:00 AM
AZ Central.com, AZ
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – In downtown ivory shops, alongside whale-baleen baskets and walrus-tusk statuettes, tourists finger curios made from the fossils of shaggy Ice Age beasts that died on the tundra thousands of years ago.
Woolly mammoth fossils, abundant on riverbanks and beaches in the interior, are shaped into jewelry or etched with scrimshaw, then sold to collectors and retail shops.
Alaska’s borders contain the largest caches of mammoth remains in the United States, and a consistently cold climate has kept much of them in carvable condition.
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