Far in the north of Russia, in the city of Yakutsk, there is a one-of-a-kind Mammoth Museum, which displays more than two thousand bone remains of ancient fossil animals. And this is not at all surprising, because it is on the territory of Yakutia in the layers of permafrost that a huge number of mammoth bones, woolly rhinoceros, bison and other ancient creatures are found.
Finding a museum will not be difficult, the residents of Yakutsk, a city with a mammoth museum, are very proud of it and will show the way with pleasure.
History of the museum
From ancient times, the inhabitants of the far North mined huge bones of strange animals from permafrost. And if mammoth tusks were used in the manufacture of skillful carvings, then the remaining bone remains were of no value to local residents.
For the first time, a scientific expedition to the territory of Yakutia was sent in 1799 from the capital's Academy of Sciences. The expedition was headed by zoologist Mikhail Adams, and the first skeleton of a mammoth, then discovered by scientists, was called the mammoth of Adams.
The next expedition was equipped much later, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, scientists regularly conduct research in the territory of Yakutia, and many unique fossils have been found. Basically, all the extracted parts of the animals were sent to the central institutes of the country, until in 1991 a decision was made to create the Mammoth Museum. The initiator was the first Yakut mammoth specialist Petr Alekseevich Lazarev, who believed that it was more expedient to study and systematize the remains of fossil animals where they are found.
Unique finds
Since the creation of the Mammoth Museum of Local History, several significant finds have been made by his scientific expeditions. So, in 2009, an incomplete part of the Verkhoyansk horse was found, its age is estimated at 4450 years. The intact mummy of an ancient predatory beast and the untouched mummy of a young bison were also excavated. Each find, where parts of the soft tissues of animals are preserved, has great scientific value. All such exhibits are stored in a huge underground laboratory freezer, where most scientific research is done.
One of the last significant finds made by the museum workers is considered to be a well-preserved spear found among the ribs of a mammoth. The size of the ancient spear is about 30 centimeters; it is entirely carved from the mammoth bone. Scientists call the approximate age of the find - 12 thousand years.
Museum exhibits
At the stands of the Mammoth Museum a huge amount of information has been collected about how exactly the remains of ancient animals are searched and removed from the soil. This is a painstaking process requiring great care and scrupulousness. There are still a lot of maps, photographs from the site of excavation, bones, teeth, tusks and other parts of ancient minerals.
Large exhibits of the museum amaze with their monumentality. In his collection, accessible to tourists, there are three completely restored skeletons: a mammoth, a woolly rhino and a bison. Next to the huge mammoth in the museum of local lore, a large fossil predator - a life-size white lion - grinds its teeth. So many fossils can be seen only here. There are no analogues to many exhibits presented in the museum all over the world.
Many finds of prehistoric animals made in Yakutia adorn museums in Russia and the world. For example, the full skeleton of a mammoth is part of the exposition of the Natural History Museum in Paris.
Mammoth Dima
One of the most famous prehistoric animals in the world - the mammoth Dima, was also found in Yakutia. This happened in 1977 in the upper Kolyma River. His discovery almost immediately became a worldwide sensation: all parts of the animal, including tissues and internal organs, were almost completely intact. Only the skin of the animal, to which the dogs were able to reach, suffered a little.
The found body of the mammoth was transported to Moscow for further study. Today, Dima is one of the exhibits of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
However, in Yakutia it would be impossible to ignore such a find, therefore, in the Museum of the Mammoth there is an exact copy of the life-size mammoth Dima. It rises on a separate podium over the rest of the museum's exposition.
Majestic mammoth and rhino
But completely authentic are the huge skeletons of a mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, located in the halls of the museum. When you are near them, involuntarily the thought creeps in: how could our brave ancestors hunt such huge animals?
The mammoth skeleton in the museum of local lore is set on a separate pedestal for a comfortable inspection, so the animal can be viewed from all sides. On the same eminence are individual bones and teeth of mammoths. Each exhibit is provided with a detailed description.
The woolly rhinoceros, whose skeleton also adorns the Mammoth Museum, lived on our planet at the same time as mammoths. This huge animal grew up to two meters at the withers, and its two sharp horns were a threat enough to scare offenders. It is known that ancient people almost never hunted woolly rhinos.
International projects
Museum scientists work very closely with paleontologists from different countries, often conduct joint expeditions to find rare parts of ancient animals.
In addition to parts of animals of the ice age, fossilized remains of various breeds of dinosaurs are also found in Yakutia.
Due to the uniqueness of the exposition gathered by the museum staff, international "mammoth" exhibitions are often organized, in which many world-famous scientists are interested.
Also interesting is a joint project with Japanese scientists on the cloning of mammoths. This idea itself seems fantastic, but the preservation of some remains in permafrost is such that scientists allow this possibility.
