All language subtitles for Mammoth.Hunters.2025.1080p.WEB.H264-JAVLAR_Subtitles01.ENG

[thunder rolling]

[Brian McCaughan] There
was lightning

cracking all around us,

and I'm like, okay, I
shut down the crew.

A storm like
we have never, ever seen before

came through.

Yeah,
the clouds roll in

when this mammoth
wants to speak.

If I learned one
thing from last year,

it's to listen to Nun Cho Ga.

Get out of here!

Just
one little pick,

and then this pink reddish
thing popped out of the wall,

and then it kind of tumbles
down next to the excavator,

so I got out and checked it out,

and it had a trunk.

It looked like it
died, like, a week ago.

It was unbelievable
seeing something like that.

The eyelashes, the
feet, the toes, the tail.

I mean,
you really can't help

but wonder what
it all means, right?

-Wow, that's incredible.
-Unreal. Holy shit.

We haven't seen it like this.

St. Paul
is like this tiny little island

in what was this
massive land bridge

between Asia and Alaska.

It's pretty hotly debated

about what this
landscape was like

when the mammoths were
out on this land bridge,

and we know very well

that they were out
on the land bridge

because a small pocket of them

got caught up and
isolated on St. Paul Island.

What caused
mammoths to go extinct

is just very argued about,

it's just an intriguing forensic
palaeo story.

Here we are. Set it up on there?

A natural crack has gone
down mainly along this ridge

and on the opposite
ridge as well,

so I used that as a guide.

Yeah, definitely,
it looks fairly lined up.

Maybe if you scooch
it. Nope, not...

Um, yeah, this is great,

'cause I feel like
a real dentist now.

I have a good
feeling about this tusk.

Fire 'er up.

Okay, here we go.

Oh, my goodness.

How's it
looking underneath?

You're starting
to angle off the line

a little too much.

Let's
pause for a moment.

So maybe we'll pop a shim in,

and then we'll just tape.

You got it, Jesse, that's great.

Clear.

We're going to have to
tip the back end up higher.

Higher? Yeah. Yeah. Oh.

Now if you put the
shim right here, Greg.

Ready?

Nice.

-Beautiful. -Nice.

Yes.

Right to the point.

Right to the point.

-Yeah. Beautiful.
-Okay.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That's going to
be good. Did you see that?

-Go and tape this up.
-Yeah, let's just get...

That's going to be
good. It's so solid.

Dale, do you want to just
tape on the point there?

-Hold that there.
-Yeah. Got it.

Did you
get a sneak peek?

I got a sneak peek!

You're
covered in mammoth dust.

Look at that.

Oh, yeah, good.

Take my picture, Dale.

Oh, there it is.
There it is. There it is.

-Okay.
-Yeah.

Wow.

This looks really good.

That's
probably a year right there.

You're looking at...
-Look at that.

...to there, to there.

So that's one, two,
three, four, five.

It's like a tree ring record

that's growing on the
head of a mammoth

and laying down
this record over time.

...nine, ten.

Wow. You guys nailed it

in terms of just cutting
along the growth layers.

Yeah, really.

You can see the
structure so beautifully.

Still a ton of material.

Yeah, really.

Wouldn't it be
cool if we could generate a map

that had a mammoth moving
around over its lifespan?

That is fresh too.

Okay.

There is a fragment
right there too.

Wow.

One bit. It might be a mandible.

Is that solid in there?

No.

It's a mandible!

The tongue for the mammoth,

that's where the
tongue would rest.

His chin.

Okay.

This is not
easy to climb up.

You can always
do the tephra test,

so then you stick
some in your hand.

Then you...

...spit on it.

Then you roll it
around in your spit.

Clay will form a ball,

and if it's tephra,
it'll just smear.

It's smeary.

Volcanic material gives
us a time marker

of about 160,000 years.

Things we do for science
I'll never understand.

Whoo! Oof!

Oh, my god!

Whoa!

It's actually really big.

It's bigger than the ones
we have in our collection.

Yeah, this is going to be fun.

Oh, my God.

I wonder.

Wowzas.

I'm wondering if this
is like a mastodon,

to be honest.

-Mastodon.
-Yep.

I don't know off
the top of my head,

but we'd have to match it up

against our mastodon
back in the collection.

I just think based
on the colour too.

I dunno. Just have a feeling.

Cool.

What counts here is
the number of plates.

Yeah.

That is essential to
identify the species.

Not only is the
fossilization important,

but I also want to look at
the thickness of the enamel.

Wow, do you see how
incredibly thick this is.

Well, this
femur of a woolly mammoth

is two fossils in one,

not only this huge femur

of a very old individual
of a woolly mammoth,

but look, the damage
here is caused by hyenas

which have been eating on
the carcass of this mammoth.

By studying it, it looks like a
crime scene investigation,

and all of this has been trawled

from the bottom of the North Sea

between the British
Isles and the Netherlands.

This is the fur of
the woolly mammoth.

Oh, I can smell it.

It's like an odour.

This is so unique.

I remember when I started

thawing a mammoth
carcass in Siberia

with hair dryers,

and the aroma,

the black muck was melting

and the smell of the
mammoth appeared,

and this was delicious for me

as a person who likes
mammoths very much.

And look how
beautiful this fur is.

It's very nicely preserved.

It was long ago
when Dick was knighthooded.

Sir Mammoth.
They call me Sir Mammoth.

I got awarded

with this medal of the
Queen of the Netherlands,

and of course it's unique

that a palaeontologist
will be knighthooded

because of the work he did,

but for me, I cannot live
without mammoth remains.

I mean, I've spent all
my life on palaeontology.

I have a lot of energy.

I'm collecting and collecting,

and all the time, a
collector wants more and more,

and this is what
we do every day.

We wake up with bones,

and we are going to
bed with bones.

Do you
dream about mammoths?

Yes, sometimes.

Yeah, because there are

a lot of journalists
coming here,

a lot of people,

and he tells the story
again and again and again

so I can dream about it.

So, we are leaving,

and we are
moving to another place,

and our fossils will
become in Historyland

in Hellevoetsluis.

I will
start a new life.

I will start a new life.

A life without bones.

A life without bones.

Will you miss them?

Of course,
because I live with the bones

and also with Dick...

and when they are
going to the museum,

I also go to the museum

to look for the
fossils, of course,

but in our living home,

we don't have the
fossils anymore.

Most of the
collection is here.

There are about 3,000
of these styrofoam boxes.

Smaller bones are inside.

Another beautiful vertebra
of a woolly mammoth

trawled from the
bottom of the North Sea.

This is a part of the collection

which I brought together
in about 50 years.

When I
first moved to the Yukon,

there were less people here.

It felt like a lot
more wilderness,

and I spent a lot
more time in the bush

and in places where I
imagined I could see a mammoth.

The two things that are pointing

are both paintbrushes.

It goes around.

Like, the North is stationary,
and the palette goes around.

Yeah, it's really beautiful.

It was always in
the back of my mind,

the idea of Beringia...

this land bridge connecting
Siberia to the Yukon.

I was always thinking,

wow, what did it
look like back then?

Cave paintings around the world

have always fascinated me,

but the idea that human
beings saw mammoths

and went into caves
and painted them

is really very cool.

So, I've got this notebook

of just gathering ideas
and thoughts

as I walk around
and dream about this.

What do mammoths look like?

How do they smell,

and what were their tracks like?

I don't know that anybody's
actually talked

about mammoth tracks.

And from the images
that they had in the caves,

it looked like they did
travel in family groups.

This is a huge, huge
ice mass,

the Laurentide ice sheet,

and it's responsible

for a massive amount
of sea level change

during the ice ages.

All right, so this is
a map of Beringia.

Really the background story here

is we're building up so
much ice on the landscape

that our sea level is falling.

This is sea level at
minus 120 metres,

so this is Alaska.

The vast majority of time
in the last 70,000 years,

there's been a
connection with Asia.

The disconnection has
been relatively short,

the last 10,000 years,

and so there's been
ample opportunity

for migration of
plants and animals

across this land bridge.

This is a pretty
interesting time right here

where you could
still traverse across

at minus 45 metres.

Would've been quite
something to see.

This is
stuff that we've collected

from the landslide deposit

that buried the
baby woolly mammoth,

and it's just such an
unusual opportunity

to have all of the plants

that were essentially

on the hillside
above the mammoth

preserved so well.

I mean, to have chlorophyll
still preserved 40,000 years

is just phenomenal.

We've never recovered
a baby woolly mammoth.

It's not in our training.

Yeah, no standard
operating procedure for it.

That's right.

Yeah, I
certainly hadn't woken up

expecting to do
this that morning.

We pulled right
up to the excavator bucket,

as I recall.

It was this euphoria
of being at the site,

putting our hands on the section
where the mammoth came from,

but then also like,

we've got to collect
ourselves a minute here

and then actually do something,

and measure the section and
collect samples, and...

Yeah.

Second site?

Yup, second site.

So, all this is CRH 11.

We'll drive along the
length of the bluff,

but then we're going
to go across the river

to where the bar is.

Whenever we find in
situ, or in-place bones,

we get very excited.

All right, superstars, want
to take out your bonies?

-Yeah.
-Yeah.

Let's say femur.

Part of a femur?

Yeah, femur
is a good guess.

Mammoth? Small
mammoth, then. No?

Oh, it's not complete,
and no, it's not small.

It's good.

-It's good.
-Yeah.

Our choice is femur or humerus.

-Tusk.
-Tusk.

-Fantastic.
-It's a pretty solid...

We like tusks as much...
almost as much as bonies.

Tip of a tusk.

All the tusks and
teeth from here are gold mines.

Some of the tusks have
looked pretty good, actually.

Yeah, good.

Yeah, they look like the stuff
you want to get DNA from.

This one might be good.

Fingers crossed. Yeah.

-There you go.
-Nice.

It's a mammoth.

Okay, that was 17.

17.

Baby mammoth molar.

It's not a baby.

Not baby
but teen? Teenager?

We
can extract the DNA

and then use the DNA sequence as
a way of actually dating it

by looking at the amount
of missing evolution

in the DNA.

The first one you
excavated is a lower.

Is this upper?

That's an upper. Yes.

Well, what's interesting

is that we have a
good minimum age

of both these, and that's cool.

180, yeah,

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

And that's exactly what we want.

That's exactly the
type of mammoth

that we are looking for,

so these two, these
are the gold nuggets.

Yes. This is why we came.

This is why
they came all the way.

I mean, let's put it this way,

if we can get DNA from these,

we can probably resolve

much of the North
American mammoth story.

I want to go back to where
the mammoth teeth were.

Can you remember where it was?

We're just going to science
the shit out of that section.

So, let's
go to the mammoth store

and see what else we've got.

Currently sampling
the in-situ bones,

which means the ones

that we found within
the sediment layer,

so we know approximately
how old they are.

Oh yeah, nice bit of mammoth...

that along.

This looks solid and dry.

There should be six bags.

Six bags, but
that's going to be

like a hundred samples.
- Exactly.

All right,
let's do them.

This is a very young
mammoth tooth.

That's probably at
least 180,000 years old.

We take these small Ziploc bags

back to Stockholm,

and you then
use various chemicals

to dissolve the mineral
component and the proteins

so that you then can purify
the DNA into a solution,

and then we sequence that DNA.

It's not every museum
curator who's going to say,

"Oh, yeah, you can split a tusk.

That sounds like a great idea."

Oh,
that pulp cavity is amazing.

Wow.

It's got the really nice
little Schreger bands

and stuff going on there too.

That's a pretty good-sized tusk,

but this one's definitely
got a natural wear...

Wear on the tip.

She's been working

on taking the
strontium isotope data

and figuring out where
this mammoth moved.

Oh yeah.

The male and the female
over 17,000, 14,000 years ago

look like they are using
a frequently used area

in interior Alaska.

I mean, they overlap.

It's that same area

is where the earliest
archeology is, too,

so it's like, "hmm."

There we go.

So there's
everything that we need

to run more
mammoth tests in here.

You have an elemental analyzer.

This is the isotope
ratio mass spectrometer.

Then you have this
thing called the gas bench.

There's another
elemental analyzer there,

and then over here,

this is the high end of isotope.

We are freeze-drying

some of the mammoth
tusk samples over there.

Oh, you are? Good.
They demineralized.

-Yeah, they're done.
-Yeah. Good.

It'll be really cool
to see what we can learn

about the life of this animal

that this tusk represents.

These are segments
taken from the tusk.

We're measuring these
strontium measurements

along the growth layers

so we can see how
strontium changes

over the lifetime
of the mammoth.

And these other samples
here are caribou teeth,

so I don't only
work on mammoths,

I also work on caribou,

but no one wants
to hear about them,

because they're much less
charismatic than mammoths.

Slot it in.

From what we
know from the isotopes,

she did not starve to death,

and she was in the same area

as all these humans
walking around.

35 years ago,
I met Kommer Tanis,

and he became very serious.

He's really a citizen scientist,

because he builds
up his own library,

which is very good.

So this is the belt that
moves everything up.

And then we have
the bones down here.

So in all these bins
you have bones, right?

This is a bin full of bones.
- And that’s a bin full of bones

And in the bin?

And there is also a
bin of bones over there.

As a religious person,
Kommer was special

because he was a fisherman
and collecting fossils.

The ideas he has

about the age of these
Pleistocene mammals

is not according to
what I think they have,

but we have to
respect each other.

Skull of a proboscidean.

I mean, this is Faulkner,

a very famous
palaeontologist from Britain.

He wrote this book in 1868.

Ha! Now we are in the paradise.

Yeah.

Mammoths, mammoths.

In every person,
there's a little Indiana Jones.

Everybody wants
to find something

which is unique

or which is extremely rare.

But your son found
this one, isn't it?

Yes, and
he took it just before

it was going overboard
with the water.

A baby mammoth

with the first molar,
the second molar,

and the third molar.

This is so huge, Kommer, this.

Remie Bakker,
who is a palaeo artist.

He's so skilled

that for me it
was something special

to work with this man.

We had some chemistry together.

So I provide him the
scientific information,

and he understands to make
beautiful life-size models.

Well, you can
see the white dots on it.

It's been scanned,

and we did a 3D
print of it in polystyrene

to make a life-size model.

So this is a test model,

and then we put fur on it,

so that's why it's naked.

We've never seen a
herd of mammoth models,

and we, I would really
love to make a herd,

like, five, six animals together

so you can get the
feeling like what it was

and different heights
and different ages,

and it doesn't even have
to be an adult male with it,

just a herd of female mammoths.

So we know
from this fossil record

that the mammoth was an animal

living in a very nice
social group of 33 animals

headed by a female individual.

So...

and that would be nice
to have something like that

expressed in a diorama.

I hate to rain on
your parade,

but I'm not going to make
33 mammoth models.

That will take too much
of my life. Honestly.

No, but of
course I understand,

but if it is seven individuals
or 33, I don't care.

I do!

Seven or eight
for me would be okay,

something to dream about,

and it would be
unique in the world.

I guess it would.

Let's go downstairs,

because you have
some mammoth stuff?

Yes, I've got tusks down there
if you want to see them, yeah?

Yeah.

This is the
ivory we have now.

The vivianite in
it, I love the blue.

In my opinion, this left
tusk I'm holding in my hands

is from an old
female individual.

This might be of a
young male individual.

As a geomorphologist,

I'm interested in, sort
of, landscape evolution

and these kind
of big-picture questions.

This is the first glaciation

in the Quaternary or
the Pleistocene.

This is a glacial lake

that formed 2.6
million years ago.

The bottoms of Bonanza
Creek and El Dorado Creek,

it contains this
hyper-concentrated gold deposits

from the reworking of
these older sediments,

and that made
many of these creeks

just spectacular in terms
of their gold concentrations.

Try a little gold pan here.

I find gold panning
to be quite therapeutic.

It's just... you kind
of let your mind wander.

Old timers used to get, like,

back in the best
ground up in El Dorado,

they were getting upwards
of eight ounces in a pan.

Nothing.

That's it.

Actually, I
should show you down there...

Yeah.

...'cause it goes from
the black muck,

and boom, it's into
this gravel bed now.

The whole wall is gravel,

probably from the
slide up top, I'm guessing.

But what's under
that? We don't know.

Do you want
to go check it out?

-Yeah.
-Okay.

'Cause it's got
me right baffled.

Right here. You just
pan this little bit right here.

That's where your gold will be.

Okay, well, that
stuff I just collapsed,

and
that I haven't done.

I'm a bit of a speed panner,
but I probably lose a little.

I'm not going to reinvent
my panning technique.

Come on, baby.

-Silence.
-Come on, baby.

No, there's not a
whole lot of black sand.

No.

Holy shit!

What the hell, Brian?

We're going mining!

That is awesome.

That is a lot more
than I was expecting.

I expected...

I thought a couple
colours, maybe...

Holy shit! Thanks, Jeff.

-We can catch that, no problem.
-No, not at all.

We were really
wanting to stay here,

and now that's a lot
of mining over there.

Dude, this is amazing.

Holy!

I mean, that's one of
the best pans I've had.

You can't take the
smile off my face.

-That's a lot.
-That is a lot.

It's chunky.

That's why we can catch it here.
- Oh, my God.

Yeah, there's like
20 colours in there,

and not small.

-What the hell?
-It's there.

That's the first gold
I found on that side.

I must've done 10 pans up there.

And we were a ways up
on the bench, too, a little bit.

I'm telling you,

I don't smile this
much on a Sunday.

Usually putting my
money in the plate.

My work phone rang.

I don't usually,
would pick it up.

I picked it up that day,

and I just sat there

for close to probably
about a long five minutes

looking at the picture.

I couldn't make out...

I could make out what it was,

I just couldn't make out what...

what we should do.

She was wrapped
in tarp, blue tarp,

and then she was brought
out from the walk-in freezer.

The elders circled.

It was unbelievable.

The feet, the toes, the tail.

The eyelashes.

You're trying to
picture the mammoth

with the long hair on it.

Also, too, you've never ever

smelt something
like that before.

Elder Peggy Kormendy
broke the silence,

and she looked up at us

and she told us
that this will heal us.

But for me, that's powerful.

That's powerful.

That's a powerful
message that's coming.

The connection to Nun Cho
Ga is a connection to our lands,

and what does that mean?

And it's not just given to
First Nations people.

It's given to all
people that touch her

and that relate to her.

You change when
you find these items,

if you're open to it.

This is a right scapula,
so a right shoulder blade,

from a woolly mammoth.

Miners are trying to
remove the overburden

in order to get
down to the gold.

In the process, they end
up concentrating bones.

So, this is the spine.
This is the vertebra.

So who do you think?

Is that a mammoth?

It's a mammoth. Yeah.

This here is a metatarsal,

so this is part of the foot.

-Okay, yeah.
-There.

So, these are the two bits,

and I have to figure
out where they go.

It's hard to
remove all the dirt.

I spend a lot of time

looking at the
morphology of bones,

at, like, the physical
properties of bones.

Just put like a layer on,

and then so I think...

If you like doing puzzles,
if you like mysteries,

that's all it is

is puzzling and
solving mysteries.

We're changing out
some of the exhibits.

We get to display the
60-mile mammoth skull.

It's roughly 18,000 years old.

It's from a mine
just north of Dawson.

30 years ago,

I made some work based
on mammoth bones.

These are the first bones that
I reproduced way back when.

This is, like, styrofoam,

and I cut it and
then I wrapped it.

This is where the spinal
cord would go, right?

All the nerves

and all the important
information goes here.

You know the
historic photographs

where some of the miners

finding these huge
mammoth bones?

Fits like this.

This looks like it'll go here.

Think about... what the
place looked like back then.

Look at inside.

It's all, like,
ossified in there.

Like, the shape of its skull
is really beautiful, actually.

It's got so many, like,
scoops, like... yeah.

Because obviously this
is where the tooth was.

Some people are visual artists,

and they just, that's
how they live and breathe

and make sense of the world,

and that is the connection

that I have with
these cave paintings.

I think they had this need
to express what they saw.

I feel like I want to
dream about it more.

I want to be in France

so that I can just
feel what that feels like.

I love being
close to my work.

Like, you know, we are
living in the subarctic here.

You know, you're getting to live

where those mammoths
actually did walk by.

That's... you know, I am a
practicing Zen Buddhist now

and Zen Buddhist teacher,

and so that's become a
very important part of my life,

and, you know, there's so
many aspects of Zen practice

that also filter back

into shaping and
influencing my work life.

You know, one of the
tenets in that practice

is the teaching of recognizing
that all things are impermanent.

It's like, yeah, like mammoths.

We've split a tusk

that was excavated at
a site called Swan Point,

which is really interesting

because it was found in
an archaeological context.

We can take the changes

in the strontium isotope
composition of that tusk,

and we can compare it
to a strontium isotope map

in the state of Alaska,

and Audrey's working
on the code right now

to compare to the map

to figure out where this
animal moved in the past.

This is an animal

that was moving around
on the Alaskan landscape

at the same time

as the earliest people were
moving across Alaska,

so at what point did
they intersect?

Very wonderful
community here,

very interested in
what we are doing,

practical science for
the community,

but also just fascinated,
like all of us, in mammoths.

And we're a long
way from anywhere.

I mean, it took us, what,
five hours to fly out here,

probably like 700
miles away from Anchorage.

So having a little break
from mammoth research

to just do some... some cooking.

But while I'm cooking,

I'm thinking about
mammoths as well, you see,

so that's all good.

Today is the funeral of
the Queen of England,

and so I'm cooking a
blackberry and apple crumble,

and then we're going
to have a shepherd's pie,

which is also very traditional.

When the extinction of
mammoths happened on St. Paul,

which happened to be
at about 5,600 years,

that lined up perfectly

with the youngest dated mammoth
fossil from the island as well,

which just happened
to be in the cave

where we happen to
be going to tomorrow.

Okay, we're going to
slap that in the oven.

In we go.

So he's got a ripper
tooth on the excavator boom now,

and this is exactly
what they were doing

when they found the mammoth...

but when he digs back
into the permafrost here,

you'll start to see
blocks starting to fall out.

That's when the
mammoth was exposed,

and so really, the mammoth

just kind of rolled
down the slope

towards the operator,

and Travis Delawski,
he couldn't miss it.

Forbs and stuff.

It's a nice sample

of the environment that
was here a long time ago.

Green grass from
30,000 years ago, my friend.

Oh, look at that!

Is this when it still had
fur on top of its head,

or did that fall off?

Did it have fur
on its head at one time?

-Yeah, in the bunch.
-It did?

I have a picture of it, yeah.

So there's the fur,

and I have a good angle
of it with it on top.

Right. It's
just a tuft, eh, on top.

Look at that, hey,
that was pretty cool.

Can I get some of these from you?

-Yeah, absolutely.
-These photos?

Copy Bryce?

Yeah.

That last load there with Jason

was losing just a
little bit going up.

I was up top in the office,

hanging out, doing
some office work

when the call came over the air.

- Is that right?
- Yeah.

- It was that
day. -It was one of those days.

Brand-new rookie.

Travis has never
run the ripper before,

and he gets on there, and,

it's not odd to get a call,
but this one was a little odd,

because he gets
on there, he says,

"Hey, Brian, I found a body,"

and I'm like, "He's
miswording it, obviously."

I'm like, "Well, is it
human?" I said to him,

and he's like, "No, no,

it looks like maybe a
mammoth or something."

So then I said, "Well, just
bring it up at lunchtime."

I'm thinking it's just,
you know, some bones.

So it was only 20 minutes
from lunch, thank goodness,

so they bring it up,

and, man, the
second I laid eyes on,

I'm like, "Oh, my God,"

like, skin on like it just died.

So I says, "Get some
ice, get it in a bucket,

get some blankets,
get some insulation.

Let's cover this thing
up and preserve it,"

and boom, I got on
the phone to you guys.

It's amazing.

Kind of it was less
oxidized at that point.

It was a bit pinkish,

and it was just
absolutely pristine.

It was... man,

it was like it died
a couple weeks ago. Like...

You know, it's up
here thawing a little bit,

and one of the intestines
thaws, and we're looking at,

there's green grass
in the intestine.

It's like "What the..."
-Wow.

Like, how is the grass
green after 35,000 years?

Absolute miracle,

because the D10s
would've just driven over it.

It would've just mushed it up,
and you'd have never seen it,

but, you know, it was a
beautiful day that morning.

It was a clear sky, you know,

and then what happened
from there was just surreal.

Like, there was lightning
cracking all around us.

I was, "Find shelter, guys,

shut her down, we're
done for the day."

It was monsooning, and
the rain was going sideways.

After you guys left, I
would say 15 minutes,

the storm was gone,

calmed right back down, sun
comes out. It was like...

You can't tell me that
there's no connection here.

Like, I feel some kind of
connection to this valley.

I don't know what it is,

but it's... it kind of gets
a guy right here. It's...

We didn't ask for it, right?

It was presented to us,
however you want to word it.

The locals just,
they appreciated it,

and they blessed our ground,

and I'll tell you what,

this still wasn't as good as
right underneath the mammoth.

-It was...
-The gold was decent?

It was
like five ounces per hour.

So, the modern
mammoth hunters

are heading for Germany to
see a big skull.

We are going to measure

a really nice
specimen in Bottrop?

Yes, that's right.

I was wondering how
the sound might look like

when two big experienced
male individuals are immersed

and they are clashing
with the tusks to each other.

It would
all be a big fight.

A big fight,

but what the sound
might look like?

Here we are.

This collection of
Pleistocene mammals

made by my late
friend Arno Heinrich

is quite unique.

You see, old-fashioned
dredging machines.

More or less the
same we have in Yukon

when the placer miners
melt the ever-frozen ground.

This is where they are digging.

Look, in situ.

In this display, the
tusks are not the real one,

but they are in the basement, so
we can take the measurements.

Should
be very heavy, huh?

50 kilos or
something like that.

Oof, even more.

-Got it?
-Yes.

Carefully. Okay.

Okay, we do one here.

297.

Yeah, one more here.

You can see that
this is a big tusk.

53.2.

28.
-28.

28 for the right tusk.

Okay.

-86. -86.

-Very, very large ones.
-Yes. Yes.

Really huge.

And the sockets we
measured already 80s,

exactly like your skull,

so these are really
as big as they get.

How much is that?

Much larger than...
much, much larger.

How much is?

25 and eight millimetres.

25, yes.

20 percent larger.
-Mm-hm.

In woolly mammoths,

the skull breadth is
proportionate

at 10 to 15 narrower.

-Not always, because...
-Not always, okay.

So maybe we have
also woolly mammoths...

-Could be.
-Could be... you know.

But you have... the breadth

is a very close indication
of the body mass.

What about Asian
elephants? Is it the same?

Yeah, pretty much the same.

Pretty much, more or less.

Yeah, but you can find...

It's variable, but
it's not bigger than that.

This is pretty much as big as
they get in woolly mammoths.

Average, yeah, probably.

This part, I don't care.
I don't care this part.

The constitution
of that species,

but now we're talking about
woolly mammoth, not Columbian.

But what I mean...

We're not talking about
Columbian.

Come on, boys.

I will say look, because that...

I think you have a tendency
to exaggerate for this...

No, no. You have seen the...

Also yesterday when we looked...

That's
the right leg, right.

And that's the
left, and then this... ulna...

Sweet. Oh, my God.

Articulates.

Magic. It's
like a puzzle, eh?

-Yeah.
-So cool.

And if it's from the
same individual,

it'll fit perfectly.

It'll just be like magic.

Yay!

A-plus at the puzzling.

Yay.

This is like the
funnest day ever.

Whoa! That's fantastic.

"What did you do
at work?" "I puzzled."

I puzzled.

I've spent a bit
of time around elephants,

and I love them.

It's a matriarchal society

that cares for
its weakest members.

I just think that
we as a species

can learn from that
kind of behaviour...

So why wouldn't I be
interested in mammoths?

They're furry
elephants.

The shape.

Hmm.

I kind of wish I could have
met the animal, you know?

I've been putting
things together

and looking at references,

some of the drawings
of the mammoths

that I did at the palaeo
lab with Elizabeth.

Yeah, it's got the first
layers are acrylic watercolour.

The next bit of drawing I'll do,

I've got with oil stick,

and then there's going to
be another line of mammoths

at some point.

I'm always bringing in layers,

layers about the science,

layers about human
history, the animals...

This is quite exciting.

It's a workout.

Yeah.

There it is.

-Oh, my gosh.
-Gee!

Does it go on for...

There's a mound.

A debris mound, right?

A mound right
at the very bottom of this.

It's like this.

Let's do it.

-Okay.
-Okay, got it.

This ladder
is long enough, right?

Uh, I think.

Okay, we'll find out.

Ooh, okay.

It
goes all the way down.

Oh, my God...

Okay, slack.

Whoa!

It's really muddy on
the top here.

Yeah, it's big.

It's probably like
50 feet across,

at least like 15
feet in the middle.

It's kind of a
perfect, perfect dome.

Did you
find any fragments?

There's tons of little bits
of bone everywhere...

and there's a big
old, like, caribou antler.

I think what's really cool

is that there's, like... there's
new stuff being added.

There's dead birds over here.

There's all kinds
of bones in here.

This is a more recent
probably, like, fox in here.

This is amazing.

So I think it's
really, really amazing

that it's still functioning
as a kind of a trap today

and was a trap back
then 5,600 years ago

for the last mammoths.

Just a remarkable,
moving experience,

because in a way, we're
visiting with a gravesite,

you know, a grave for...

to date the youngest
mammoth in Alaska.

Yeah. Very... very remarkable.

Part of what I do is
take sediment cores

and then study the
chemistry, the isotopes,

but also little invertebrates and
things like that.

Studying the past,

all that information
is locked up

in sediments buried
on the land bridge.

Here she comes.

Wait a minute,
I got it, I got it...

-You got it?
-Yeah. You got a cap ready?

We cored about 14
metres worth of mud.

Sweet!

At about 5,600 years ago,

it turned to this salty lake,

very disturbed and muddy,

and that probably was
very bad for drinking.

Move forward. Move forward.

Move forward. Move forward.

Ladies and gentlemen,
good morning everyone.

How lovely that you
all came to witness

the unveiling of the
Southern Mammoth.

How very special
it is that we have

Historyland in our municipality.

When I was coming here
just now,

I said to my assistant:

There are once-in-a-lifetime
experiences,

and revealing a mammoth
for sure is one of them.

We have an opportunity
to go to Yukon again.

There are many questions

about the evolutionary
lineage of mammoths.

When did they
enter the new world?

Mammoths came out of Africa,

and in Asia, it evolved into
the steppe mammoth,

which came via Beringia
into the New World,

and it was the woolly mammoth

which came out of North
America via Beringia

and then finally to Europe.

These limestone
cliffs have been here forever,

and this is where people
came to paint and live.

It feels like it's the
seat of so many things.

What did you see?

How did you get it down?

and you've left us this legacy

hidden away in the
dark in a cave of rock.

That to me is fascinating.

I can't wait to see
them with my own eyes.

There's a cluster of caves
in an area called Les Eyzies,

and there's one
cave in particular

that's called Rouffignac,

but it's also known as the
cave of a hundred mammoths.

- Estelle? I'm Joyce.
-Yes, hello. Delighted.

Our mammoth.

Felix welcomes you when
you arrive at the museum.

And we are immediately in
the Paleolithic atmosphere.

And so what interests
you in the museum?

A lot of things,

but especially the people
who paint in the caves.

The period when they made
the paintings was between...

The paintings started
40,000 years ago.

-40,000 years.
-Yes, 40,000 years.

- Until...
- Until about 10,000 years ago

So this lamp is the
famous grease lamp

which was found
in the Lascaux cave.

When we discovered this
object, there were still coals.

And here, all these objects
come from the same place.

And we think it's a workshop for
making mammoth ivory jewellery.

Here, we have all these
tiny beads

that come from being worked.

At the top, we have two
mammoths facing each other.

We often see this in the art;

mammoths face to face

looking at each other,
their foreheads touching.

And there we have a
round circular object

with two mammoths
facing each other.

You've
got this beautiful view

where you could see
mammoths kind of moving around.

What a great site.

As we excavate, we try to
keep control by levels,

and then that's out of the way,

and then they
start another level.

Just coming down on
the next cultural horizon,

we think.

-Oh, really? On this one?
-Well, you see where...

Oh yeah, I see the stone
and the... yeah, right.

Below that, we
know there's cultural material.

This is about
9,900, and this is about 10,900,

and so you have occupations
within just 15 centimetres

all on top of each other.

At the full extent
of the glacier advance,

you could probably
see the end of the glacier

maybe 20 miles out there or so.

This area we're standing
at, Broken Mammoth site,

was never glaciated.

It's getting all overgrown now,

but this was where we
first found any evidence

of humans associated
with mammoths,

and it turned out

that they were making
tools from mammoth ivory.

At another site
called Swan Point,

we actually recovered
an ivory workshop

where people were
living 14,000 years ago,

contemporary with the mammoths,

and the technology there
is this microblade industry,

which had its origins
in the old world

in Siberia.

So, here's the
Broken Mammoth ivory objects

that we just housed
and resampled.

So, these are
actually ivory rods.

So they're
making all kinds of stuff

out of mammoth parts and pieces.

What part of the
mammoth is... is that tusk?

-Tusk, yeah.
-Huh.

This is actually
an ivory artifact

from Broken Mammoth.

The occupation
is about 13,500 to 14,000.

Building teams
is one of the key parts

of being a palaeoecologist.

Let's go
over to my other lab.

The
picture is built up

by assembling little
pieces of information,

and you can't do that alone.

So there would be small
razorblade-like microblades

that are coming off of
this that are super sharp,

and something small
and delicate like this

could end up generating
the kind of force

that could bring down a mammoth.
-Yeah.

But that's what his
interpretation was,

it was a mammoth.

The famous adage is, oh,
they killed one mammoth

and talked about it
the rest of their life.

I mean, I think that's
total bullshit, you know.

These guys are
clearly efficient hunters.

Humans are predators.

We're really, really
efficient predators,

and they change the landscape,
like, wherever they go.

One of the things you
do when you're stressed,

and the easiest thing
you can do, is to move.

Mammoths
can move around big time.

And I wonder if maybe

we look at these mega
grazers in a little bit...

you know, as if
they're too adaptive.

Perhaps they're
actually pretty fragile.

There just
probably isn't enough time

for recovery to occur,

and then if you layer on top

a newly arriving
stressor as well,

it's like...

The key for us is
this climate, human, you know.

It's always going
to be a problem

if they're roughly
similar in time.

They survived for
millions of years,

but they didn't at the end.

Yes, we're standing
on the valley bottom

of Eureka Creek,

so we're getting really
up close and personal

here with the muck now,

and this is a
magnificent section.

This is the site where
baby mammoth was found.

The sweet aroma
of decomposition.

We have this
incredible record here,

and all these sort of cold
and warm periods represented,

and then we have a
mammoth coming out

right around 36,000 years ago.

Travis said the mammoth was
laying on the gravel,

and the mammoth was
buried by this sort of mud,

and that was a huge clue.

In the following weeks, I
was studying my photographs,

and it was a really
chaotic, kind of, looking unit.

It dawned on me that
this is a landslide deposit.

This is a catastrophic event.

And we open it up, and
there's the mammoth steppe,

and it was this
grassland environment

with flowering plants and,
you know, a few shrubs,

but mostly really
nutritious grasses

that were able to
support all the megafauna.

This is frozen, there's
some ice crystals,

but that's why we
have a mammoth.

It's because we have permafrost.

It all came together

to preserve that baby
mammoth perfectly.

First you seal it in
the sediment,

and then you freeze
it for 36,000 years.

Green grass now coming out.

Look at that.

That is as vibrant,
fresh as yesterday.

It's a blade of grass.

Mind-blowing that
it's so well preserved.

Pure ivory.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm so honoured
to be here again.

Let me tell the story
about the mammoths.

We all know this,

but you get the
wrong information.

You will think that
all the mammoths

like the same, like Manny is.

The woolly mammoth,
which is a pure grazer,

it should spend about 16
to 18 hours a day foraging.

Most people believe
that the woolly mammoth

originated in Europe.

I am convinced

that the cradle of the
woolly mammoth is in Yukon,

and it was the woolly
mammoth which came from Yukon

via Alaska, via Beringia,
to the Old World again

and to Western Europe.

So now we go
on Bonanza Creek?

We are going
to Independent.

The traffic is wonderful.

No cars at all.
- Yeah.

Except us.

It was
pretty busy yesterday.

I counted the cars
which we came across.

Six, I've counted.

That was rush hour.

Yeah.

Ready for
the creek crossing?

Yeah. Yeah.

You like it?

You just got to give 'er.

Yeah.

So, this is a
full-grown individual,

probably a small female.

This is wonderful.

And it's just
laying around here.

Nice colour. Yeah,
let's go. Oh, wow.

Thank you very much.

When humans were
hunting on mammoths,

they do not take a
huge experienced bull,

but they want to take a calf
because the meat is so nice.

-Not so chewy.
-Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you very much.

I expected more,
to be honest, here. Yeah?

I mean, they haven't
been monitoring that much,

but they have
monitored a little bit,

and with all the
rain too, I thought...

Yeah, I thought,

"Oh, you have to pick
up again and again."

Whoa. It's deep.

It's a
nice Pleistocene horse,

and so well preserved.

Frozen in the mud.

Oh, Dick!

Mammoth.

Right over there.

Oh yeah. It goes down further.

It's going deeper.

Et voilà.

A mammoth!

-Okay?
-Yeah.

This is a
half pelvic bone,

a hip bone of a woolly mammoth,

and it's quite a big one.

This must be of
a male individual.

It's a wonderful piece.

That was a
good mammoth hunt.

The Palaeolithic
art of Rouffignac,

16,000 or 17,000 years old,

is dominated by
images of mammoths.

And today we know of 170
mammoth images in this cave.

To know the animal
with this precision,

you must have really studied it.

You must have seen
living mammoths.

The artist is more of a
craftsperson than an artist.

- It’s a job.
- It’s a job.

I thought this was someone who
was inspired by animals.

He wants to do something,

he wants to make an
expression of his life.

But it’s different if I
think he’s given a mission

to portray life or animals
or something like that.

We will never see what they saw

because our eyes
are not the same.

What seems possible
is that in their eyes,

this world of nature,

probably has meaning
and is filled with beliefs.

I'm going in

looking for an experience
about, you know, the mammoth

and who painted these animals.

So, it's a really quick
visit, and it's in the dark.

My pockets are all loaded

with some kinds of
pencils on one side

and different pencils
on the other side.

Go and have a mammoth
experience in the cave.

I ask that you not
take photographs.

We must absolutely not
touch anything. Thank you.

Imagine them
walking in these halls,

lit by the flickering
of their torches.

Their grease lamps.

It was a sea of
black around them.

And this glow

which connected them to life.

We are 700 metres
from the entrance

and we are going to see
one of the most beautiful

evocations of the
mammoths of Rouffignac.

The next
thing that you see

is the grandfather,
or the patriarch,

or however you want to call him.

Guide: He is named the
Patriarch, the old chief.

We call him the grandfather
with his enormous tusks,

his long hairs which
resemble a long beard.

It is surely one of the most
beautiful images of the mammoth

that exists in all cave art.

It's the
simplicity of the line

that's so eloquent,

but it's also, you
know what you're looking at.

And there's another
group of mammoths

on the right-hand side,

and a little tiny
baby at the bottom.

Frédéric Plassard: The
notion of face-to-face

are key elements
in Rouffignac’s art.

These images don’t show any
aggressiveness,

it’s not a fight scene.

Cave art is not the art of all
prehistoric men, but of a few.

Men or women, we don't know.

But for some reason, it was
their trade, their expertise.

The most
incredible piece

is this long frieze of mammoths.

It's truly spectacular.

Guide: It is the largest work
known in cave art.

It is monumental.

Just
like, "Oh, my God."

You know, we're going
deeper and deeper

and deeper and
deeper into this cave.

It's like, "Holy."

You don't really know
where you're going at first.

How many times did it take

and how many passages in and
out before you felt comfortable?

But if you want to paint,

you keep going, you keep
going, you keep going,

and then there's
this incredible ceiling.

Like, wow, that was...
that was, like, impactful.

It took me a second.

It was beautiful.

Audrey's back,

and we're going to get to
see her brand-new data.

I'm just super excited.

So what this
snippet of code is doing

is it's getting all of these
isotopes on the same scale.

I didn't like the
parameters he used

for the threshold

for how much the measured
strontium in the tusk

is allowed to differ

from the strontium
isoscape in the ground,

so I made them a lot smaller.

I tightened them up,

and I think I got some
interesting...

- Some better results.
- Some better results.

So I'm going to
start showing you...

-Okay!
-Okay.

So I did
only 5,000 iterations,

'cause I ran this last night,

and I wanted it to
be done before today.

Oh, my goodness.

But I think
5,000 is still enough

to have a pretty good pattern.

Can we go
back to the previous one?

Right! So let's look
how they compare to each other.

What you will like is when
I change the parameters,

we're seeing similar patterns

in terms of, it kind of
spends some time here,

but it also loves to go into
these Eastern Brooks Range,

but like Beringia Eastern
Brooks Range.

Uncannily,
that's where the male went.

-Really?
-Yeah.

-Oh, my God.
-That's where Kik went.

Oh, Audrey, this is so exciting.

My buzz here is not
being carried by caffeine,

'cause this is a decaf.

So it's like...

-This is just pure excitement.
-It's pure excitement.

No, this is so cool

that it always ends
up using these same regions.

But where's the
highest concentration

of known archeological
sites at this point in time?

-Right. It's all up in here.
-Right?

So I wonder, were the
humans spending time there

because they knew

that all of these mammals
were having a great time,

spending a lot of time in here

because it was ecologically
the best area for them.

In fact, it could have
been attracting people,

at least for their
seasonal camps.

Yeah. This could actually
tell us a lot about humans,

and not just mammoths.

Wow. Right.

Oh, my goodness.
-This is so exciting.

One thing I'm learning
from the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in

is that its spirit was
maybe not released

and it's lingering around here,

and I can't help but wonder

if sort of the events of
the day that we found her

and the big storm that
happened, and...

if that was somewhat of her...

a reflection of
her spirit... still here.

Oh, there's a beetle.

That's pretty neat.

Shiny little black thing,
that's the back... of a beetle.

Yep. It's probably marching
around on the hillside

when... all of a sudden,

it was consumed...
by the landslide.

Incredible...

when I saw how
well-preserved she was.

Skin was still pink.

Her eyes looked like
they closed yesterday.

One year ago this week... she
came out of her icy tomb

and... was announced with
this incredible storm.

And here it comes again.

I mean, you really can't help...

but wonder what
it all means, right?

It's like her ancestors are
speaking or something, right?

Thundering across the hills.

You can just imagine
these hills were,

all these grass,

it was all grasslands... as
far as the eye could see

up in the hills.

With all these animals grazing.

Oh yeah.

Storm a-coming.

If I learned one
thing from last year,

it's "Listen to Nun Cho Ga."

Get out of here!

The ink
and where it lands

is going to be quite
spontaneous and lovely,

and then I'll work
with what I see after that.

I can almost hear them
and feel their trunks swaying.

Mammoths walking,
quiet march through time.