Scientists establish age of mammoth found near Kennewick

Scientists now know how old a mammoth skeleton is that is being dug up just south of Kennewick -- 17,450 years.

That makes it a fairly recent skeleton for a North American mammoth. Columbian mammoths roamed the area from about 400,000 to 11,000 years ago, dying out with 90 percent of other large mammals at the end of the last major Ice Age.

The animal is older than Kennewick Man, whose 9,300-year-old skeleton was found on the banks of the Columbia River in 1996. The two would have missed each other by about 8,000 years.

The age of the mammoth skeleton was determined through radiocarbon dating and is believed to be accurate to plus or minus 25 years, said George Last, a senior research geologist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

It's not uncommon to find mammoth bones in the Ice Age flood deposits of Eastern Washington.

However, few have been excavated and studied to the exacting scientific standards that modern paleontolgy and archaeology require, according to the MCBONES Research Center Foundation of the Coyote Canyon Mammoth Site near Kennewick.

Researchers, who are also collecting other animal bones and plant seeds as the mammoth is excavated, are trying to capture data to show how plants and animals changed over time.
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