Diary in a mammoth’s tusk

Karen Spaleta analysing a mammoth tusk at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. — University of Alaska Fairbanks via The New York Times Company

SCIENTISTS have written the biography of a 14,000-year-old female woolly mammoth, thanks to the chemicals in her tusk.

The animal, nicknamed Elma, was born in what is now the Yukon and stayed close to her birthplace a decade before moving hundreds of miles west into central Alaska, the scientists said in their study. There she remained until she reached about 20, when she was most likely taken down by hunters.