Mammoth tusks: prey, products. mammoth tusks

Mammoth tusks are fairly common finds in Siberia and Yakutia. Due to the high demand for them, many residents are engaged in their extraction, despite the severity of the work.

About mammoths

These are large mammals that look like elephants and are representatives of the same family, but greatly exceed them in size. Another significant difference between mammoths was that they were covered with thick and long hair. According to scientists, their height sometimes exceeded five meters, and their weight was about one and a half dozen tons. Mammoth tusks, photos of which can be seen below, were quite comparable to the size of their owners.

So, the longest of all those found in Russia weighed more than 100 kg, and its length was about 4.5 m. The diameter of such a tusk can be about 18 cm. The weight of an average tusk is about 50-60 kg.

Why mammoths disappeared

Due to the rapid warming, glaciers began to melt rapidly. This led to the flooding of the places where mammoths lived. Thus, many of them starved to death, being cut off from the mainland. The most numerous herds were concentrated in the northern part of Siberia. Therefore, it is here that the largest number of their remains rest.

About the fishery

Mammoth tusks, which can be buried in Russia up to 60 tons, and according to some sources, there are many more, it is very difficult to extract. Animal remains are in hard-to-reach places. They often have to be lifted from the bottom of lakes, pulled out of swamps. Sometimes prospectors spend several days to extract the coveted prey. It happens that people are lucky, tusks are found on the banks of rivers or in ravines. This material has a great value, which is comparable to amber and pearls. In addition, the strength of the bone is also similar to these natural precious materials. Since the tusk has plasticity and beauty, products made from it are sometimes very expensive, in some cases estimated at millions of dollars.

For researchers, the locations of the remains of giants are important from a scientific point of view. They allow you to get more information about the climate, animals and plants of those periods, so illegal extraction of tusks harms scientific work. One of the goals is to recreate the mammoth by cloning it. Unfortunately, no suitable biomaterial has yet been found.

How profitable is the business

In ancient times, Siberians were famous for their ability to create real works of art from mammoth tusk. Moreover, due to the size of the source material, these could be truly large-scale works. But the carvers were not limited to gigantic works, they could also offer skillfully carved small figurines, chess pieces, caskets, combs. Items performed not only decorative functions, but were also used in everyday life. For example, the mammoth tusk pipe was a beautiful and functional musical instrument.

By the middle of the last century, the number of carvers had seriously decreased. Today, masters are hard to find.

Now the extraction of bone is associated with its sale abroad, the predominant market is China, where the demand for this unique material is unusually high. There are very popular items made from mammoth tusk. And the art of creating unusual works from this material is one of the revered traditions that are not only not forgotten, but continue to develop. Almost all of the extracted material is sold illegally. The explanation for this lies on the surface - there is a stable demand with a good price. So, according to experts, the cost of this material on the Russian black market is tens, and sometimes hundreds of times lower than in neighboring China.

The complexity of the work

Despite the prospect of high earnings, the work of extracting this unique material is difficult and carries a lot of risks. Mammoth tusks can only be harvested in the summer. Based on the fact that every year their reserves are decreasing, more and more time and effort is spent on searches. Sometimes you have to do the hardest work, actually cutting down the found artifact, while its size and quality greatly affect the sale value.

Not every trip of miners is crowned with success, so there is no need to talk about constant earnings. A serious problem is that such mining is illegal, therefore, in addition to the difficult living conditions in the forest, prospectors need to hide from the police. But the opportunity to earn up to $100,000 per team forces many to take risks.

Products

The largest mammoths died out about ten thousand years ago, dwarf ones - about three and a half thousand years ago. Therefore, tusks are the most valuable material from which various souvenirs and art objects are made. In addition, this material is often combined with others. For example, knives are made in this way. Unique and beautiful handles are created from mammoth tusk, while the blade can be made of Damascus steel. Such a souvenir can become a reliable companion for lovers of fishing, hunting and hiking. The cost of such a product is quite high and not everyone can afford it. The material is valued not only for its rarity, but also for its strength, reliability and the ability to persist for many years.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of products, like the source material, are traded on the black market, some people find ways to bring them out of the shadows. After the paperwork is completed, the price of such items rises even higher. It cannot be unconditionally stated that any product has a significant value and it is easy to find a buyer for it. The quality of the source material and the uniqueness of the work, the name of the master and the age of the product are the main, but far from complete, list of pricing criteria for each work.

You can buy products in stores specializing in elite and expensive gifts, in antique shops, at auctions. But in order to see the works made from the tusk live, it is not necessary to buy them, some museums have similar products in their collections, which are put on public display.

mammoth tusk sticking out of the ground

The remains of mammoths, in particular their tusks, today have the status of the most common fossil finds in the Siberian region. According to scientists, the reserves of this ancient material in Russia reach hundreds of thousands of tons, and the annual production is several tens (20-60) tons. Considering the volumes of relics mined, one can only imagine what a grandiose number of mammoths lived on these lands in those distant times. Famous tusks-record holders curled in spirals of 4-4.5 meters, their weight was 100-110 kg, and their diameter was 18-19 cm.

Mammoth tusks found on the shore of a reservoir

Indigenous peoples of the northern regions, who previously often encountered tusks washed by spring waters, believed that giant animals move underground, exposing only their huge "fangs" above its surface. They called them Yeggor, i.e. earth deer. According to other traditions, mammoths lived at the beginning of the time of creation. Due to their enormous weight, they constantly fell chest-deep into the ground. In the paths created by mammoths, riverbeds and streams formed, which ultimately led to complete flooding (there is a legend that during the biblical flood, animals wanted to escape on Noah's ark, but could not fit there). For some time, the animals swam in the endless waters, but the birds that landed on their tusks doomed them to death.

Extraction of mammoth tusks in the depths of Siberian lands

Throughout the European part of Russia and Siberia, and up to the middle of the 20th century, the folk art of bone carving actively flourished. Local carvers produced combs, boxes, miniature sculptures and pods exclusively from mammoth tusks. This material is very beautiful, plastic and durable, although it is somewhat difficult to process. Its hardness is equated to such materials as pearls, amber and coral. Mammoth bones are easily processed with a cutter, acquiring a magnificent mesh pattern, and due to their large size, almost any sculptural shape can be made from them.

Cultural figurines made of mammoth tusks

Mammoth tusks are returned from the permafrost with the help of the hard work of seekers. Their extraction is quite difficult, since often the ancient material is hidden in marshy places, at the bottom of rivers, in the tundra. Often tusks are found along the banks of streams, lakes and ravines. To extract one artifact, the miner needs from several hours to several days of continuous excavation. Before taking the found material, tusk hunters throw silver ornaments or colored balls into the dug hole as an offering to local spirits.

Extraction of mammoth tusk in the far north of Yakutia

The difficult process of obtaining a mammoth tusk

Today, almost all the extraction of mammoth tusks in the expanses of Siberia is illegal, and about 90% of the “jewels” obtained end up in China, where the ancient tradition of ivory carving is highly revered. The rapid growth in demand is causing some concern among researchers, as it leads to the loss of valuable data on the animals that lived on this land, whose tusks contain information about climate, food and the environment. Perhaps millions, if not more, of mammoth tusks are still locked in the permafrost of Siberia, but finding them every year is becoming increasingly difficult. Currently, the cost of a kilogram of high-quality mammoth bones on the black market is about 25 thousand rubles, and in antique shops in China, the price of one skillfully carved tusk can reach a million dollars.

Bizarre mammoth tusk

Mammoth tusk carving

Active extraction of mammoth tusk in Siberia

Prey of mammoth tusk hunters

Evaluation of found mammoth tusks

Preparing to transport the found mammoth tusk

In chapter

Dmitry Medvedev instructed Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeev to sort out the situation with the extraction of a fossil mammoth bone. He, in turn, gathered officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Rosnedra, as well as market participants, for a meeting. It is even strange that the government did not take care of the “mammoth” problem earlier, because the mammoth bone market is now absolutely opaque.

Although Russia is not the birthplace of elephants, it is certainly their last refuge. Scientists have reliably established that the last herds of mammoths lived on Wrangel Island about three and a half millennia ago. Today mammoth bone cemeteries are found everywhere - in France, in the Czech Republic, in Ukraine. But only where the earth has been in a state of permafrost for thousands of years, the mammoth tusk is preserved in its original form.

Today it is the only high-value bone material allowed for extraction and use. Elephant tusks have long been transferred to the category of forbidden materials, similar decisions were made regarding the tooth of the sperm whale (due to the complete rejection of whale hunting) and walrus tusk (mined by the northern peoples in small quantities). Because the mammoth bone is in the price. One of the largest mammoth burials in the world is Yakutia (80% of the world stock). According to experts, the potential reserves of mammoth ivory in the North Yakut bone province may be about 500,000 tons, their value exceeds $1.5 billion. Today, mammoth ivory cannot be mined in Russia: it can only be collected where it comes to the surface by itself. This activity is regulated by the law "On subsoil" (collection of mineralogical collections). The licenses issued by the regional authorities are a kind of ticket to the multi-million dollar market. They allow you to legalize any amount of illegally extracted bone - if there is a sale.

For 20 years, the government of Yakutia has been convincing the federal center to give the region control and supervisory powers in the area of mammoth ivory trafficking. At the same time, the Yakuts are trying to monopolize the buying market. The motivation is good - “black digging” is flourishing, taxes are not paid, products are exported without duties to China. However, in reality, the Yakut clans are fighting with each other for access to the products of the "first grade" - the most valuable specimens of tusks.

Prices and grades

The most valuable is considered to be a completely preserved mammoth tusk, which does not have external damage. As a rule, collectible tusks are rarely used for bone carving, they are very beautiful in themselves, and they are transferred either to museums or used as interior decoration. Paired tusks of one animal are especially valued.

For sculptural carving, only "first grade" is suitable. It includes whole tusks, as well as well-preserved fragments of tusks that do not have cracks or other visible defects inside. Mammoth bone sculptures are especially prized in China. By the way, Prime Minister Medvedev also likes products made of mammoth bones, and they are present in his office. There are only a few real masters in cutting in Russia, not the last people place orders for them. Complex sculptures can cost from a million rubles.

The so-called chips (small bones and fragments of large bones) go to dealers for a penny - 25 rubles per kilogram. From it, for example, you can make different crafts. Much more expensive is the more liquid material - well-preserved tusks, individual large bones. Here the price can vary from 2 thousand rubles to infinity, it all depends on the quality of the material.

It is noteworthy that the mammoth had only four teeth: two at the top and two on the lower jaw. The upper (chewing) part of the tooth is a kind of grater, with which he rubbed grass, small branches and leaves. Previously, the mammoth tooth was practically not used for bone carving, since it is hard to process and crumbles. Today, after a certain processing, the mammoth tooth is widely used by craftsmen in the Scandinavian countries.

"Black Paleontologists"

All summer these people spend in forests and swamps, trying to find the remains of ancient animals and, most importantly, to find their tusks. This activity is illegal, so diggers have to avoid encounters with police and conservation services, as well as put up with difficult living conditions in the forest. But all this is offset by the high cost of tusks. On our black market, a 65-kilogram mammoth tusk somehow got $34,000. There have been cases when groups of diggers managed to earn about 100 thousand dollars in a week of searching.

The tusks of ancient mammoths are extremely valuable for scientists and archaeologists, but most of them disappear without a trace on the black market. Carefully packed in plastic film, the tusks fly to Yakutsk, from where they are sent to China.

The cargo, of course, is unofficial. On the Chinese black market, the price for such bones starts at $35,000 for each tusk. But only 20-30% of "black paleontologists" will succeed. For most diggers, a whole summer of hellish work in the mud will only be a waste of time and money (often they take extortionate loans). Many get only ordinary bones, which are worthless.

In general, the extraction of mammoth ivory is very detrimental to the environment. Both licensees and "black paleontologists" mercilessly erode the banks of the Yakut rivers with the help of motor pumps. But not only the environment is being destroyed barbarically. So, not so long ago, a huge cemetery of mammoths (more than 5 thousand square meters) and sites of ancient people were found on the territory of the Tomsk region. As a result, "black paleontologists" staged a whole pilgrimage here. Thousands of square meters of soil have been dug up to extract mammoth bones. They dug even in winter. What came across in parallel - evidence of the Paleolithic era (stones and bones processed by ancient people) - was destroyed, lost. According to the descriptions of the local population, there were hearths with charcoal of ancient people. Everything is irretrievably destroyed. Such barbarism, of course, requires punishment to the fullest extent of the law. But the laws are just not written.

Licensing Issues

It is interesting that Fyodor Shidlovsky, the founder of Nash Ice Age LLC and Moscow's largest dealer in VIP products from mammoth ivory, attended the meeting with Alexei Gordeev. He and other major players are not opposed to legally extracting bone at a depth of more than 6 meters. This will increase its annual export by 10 times - up to 1 thousand tons per year, increasing income by 12-13 billion rubles. Fortunately, China is ready to absorb the entire volume of mammoth ivory from Yakutia due to the ban on the trade in elephant tusks.

However, it is practically impossible to estimate the real reserves of mammoth ivory in the bowels of Russia. It is also impossible to estimate the starting amount of payment for the use of subsoil for the purpose of extracting mammoth ivory. For the price of the final product depends more on the skill of the carver than on the quality of the raw material.

At a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeev, “the possibility of legislatively classifying subsoil plots containing mammoth ivory as subsoil plots of local importance, providing them for use through auctions, establishing regular payments for this type of subsoil use and ensuring the sale of mammoth ivory and products from it was discussed at organized auctions,” said a representative of Gordeev.

“A significant part of the locations of mammoth tusks is located in the coastal, including underwater, zone of the seas of the Arctic Ocean, as well as on the islands assigned to the shelf zone of the Russian Federation. However, at present, mammoth ivory is not an independent type of mineral and the calculation of reserves and the assessment of forecast resources are not carried out,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.

In a word, some kind of legislative impasse. The problem with the extraction of mammoth ivory can grow old, like the mammoth tusks themselves, but remain unresolved? The meeting participants conceptually supported the possibility of establishing a new type of subsoil use in the subsoil legislation - the collection of mineralogical, paleontological and other geological materials as ornamental raw materials for commercial purposes. However, this fee may be charged.

Gordeev also instructed to speed up the formation of a working group in the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, which will develop solutions to improve legislation in the field of extraction and circulation of fossil mammoth ivory. Perhaps this group will finally come up with something worthwhile.

The turnover of ivory is carefully controlled, so mammoth tusks are now in special demand - primarily for export to China. A new kind of gold rush brought back to life one of the most ancient professions - mammoth hunters. Dollar millionaires suddenly appeared in the remote impoverished villages of Russia.

The mammoth tusk seekers allowed our journalist Amos Chapple to visit one of their camps on the condition that he would not reveal their names or whereabouts. The reasons are obvious: mining methods are illegal, and the seekers themselves are either hiding from police patrols or are in an alcoholic stupor.

Woolly mammoths, extinct relatives of modern elephants, are believed to have lived in Siberia about 400,000 years ago. Now it is a territory of permafrost: thanks to a thick layer of ice underground, the skeletons of mammoths are stored for thousands of years. To reach buried treasure, hunters need to break the layer of ice with water pumped from a nearby river, which can take months. But the tusk can be sold to the Chinese for about 35 thousand dollars (about 2 million rubles) - and this is a justified risk for residents of cities with an average salary of less than 500 dollars (28 thousand rubles).

However, this is not a pleasant walk for guaranteed money. The men leave their families behind and go on a cross-country journey where they have to fight hordes of mosquitoes and hide from the police, who can fine them or put them in jail. To survive this ordeal, they drink a lot of vodka and cheap beer, which leads to frequent fights. Perhaps worst of all is the impact their actions have on nature: sewage from the excavated permafrost flows back into the surrounding rivers and pollutes the course.

Since the sale of ivory is now tightly controlled, China has to make do with the "ethical" tusks of extinct mammoths. Every summer, seekers venture into the wilderness in hopes of making a fortune. I got access to where groups of men illegally hunt the remains of disappeared giants from Siberia - but only on the condition that I will not disclose the names of people and the exact locations of the shooting.

The bend of the river, dotted with the remains of mammoths. From the nearest village you need to drive four hours by motorboat.

One paleontologist told me that once there was most likely a swamp here - prehistoric animals drowned in it.

Treasure hunters pump water out of the river with fire pumps - they prefer devices from Tohatsu.

Then they drain this water next to the river.

Some dig deep long tunnels underground. Their walls are as soft as the soil in a garden.

Other miners carve huge caves in the permafrost.

Someone gouges channels right in the topsoil.

And they all hope to find it - a perfectly preserved mammoth tusk. For a kilogram of this they give 520 dollars.

Under Yakutia lies a huge layer of frozen soil.

In normal temperature soil, bones decompose within 10 years. But in permafrost, tusks and bones like this can be stored for tens of thousands of years, making Yakutia a mecca for mammoth hunters.

I photographed this 65-kilogram tusk a few minutes after it was removed from the frozen ground. It was sold for 34 thousand dollars. The two men who found him found three more tusks this week, and one of them weighed as much as 72 kilograms.

Successful hunters rejoice in future profits. They made about $100,000 in eight days.

This is a lot of money for a region with an average salary of $ 500 a month, but it does not always work out to buy a happy ending. In the photo - a memorial to two young hunters who found treasures worth more than 100 thousand dollars, had a lot of fun, and then swam upstream drunk. The boat capsized and they drowned.

In the hunters' hometown, elusive "agents" pay cash for freshly dug tusks. These trophies were wrapped in plastic bags and sent by plane to Yakutsk, from where they will fly to China. The cargo was covered with a tarpaulin. When I lifted it, the flight attendant yelled at me, and immediately after this photo, she came up to me and knocked the camera out of my hands.

Here you can find not only the remains of mammoths. This is the skull of a bison that once lived on the Siberian plains.

And this skull, adapted to stand under the teapot, belonged to a woolly rhinoceros, which died out from 8 to 14 thousand years ago.

Another rhinoceros skull that last saw the sun at least 11,000 years ago. The man who found it said: when you find a skull, the horn is usually somewhere nearby, 15-20 meters away.

This rhino horn weighing 2.4 kilograms was sold for 14 thousand dollars. Most likely, it will end up in Vietnam, where it will be crushed into a powder and sold as a medicine.

Raw horn feels like driftwood to the touch and smells like a dog. In Vietnam, the powder from such a horn is believed to cure cancer, so it will literally cost more than gold there.

However, most seekers will waste their entire summer working hard in the mud and only lose their investment.

It takes tons of fuel to run the pumps, and most crews find nothing but useless bones like these. Paleontologist Valery Plotnikov, who is familiar with this camp, estimates the number of successful seekers at 20-30%: “It's very sad. Many of them take bank loans for the sake of the expedition.”

To save money on the trip, this young hunter made a pump from the engine of a Buran snowmobile.

When the frost hits, he will put the engine back on the snowmobile.

Most of these men will spend the whole summer away from home and family.

In dark tents, seekers rest playing cards, watch short popular videos or porn from their phones.

This seeker wrote a letter to his wife and handed it over with a group of comrades who were leaving for the city. Here is her answer - and this is the first news from his wife in a week.

This piece of venison is a rare luxury. They usually eat stew and noodles here. Two seekers said that once, "when necessary", they ate dog meat. They said it smelled like lard.

Mosquitoes are an annoyance here almost all the time. Only on the coldest morning you can rest for an hour or two.

In warm weather, some men dress more like beekeepers than hard laborers.

When the hunters have alcohol, the situation gets out of hand. These seekers went into the city to replenish their supplies, and halfway back they got terribly drunk. Shortly after this photo was taken, the fun was over.

The men crashed into the shore at high speed. At three in the morning, rescuers found them unconscious in a boat with half-flooded equipment. Not far from this place, two searchers drowned in 2015.

The drinking continues the next day. Usually, when alcohol appears in the camp, they drink it all at once. The next day, men sleep off, and then return to work.

The ravaged land is a clear result of the methods used by tusk hunters, but Yakutia's water system is faring even worse. The water that the seekers pump out is returned to the river, filling it with silt.

Fish disappeared from the river near our place of extraction - the searchers no longer take fishing rods with them.

A message arrives that the "green patrol" is approaching - a boat with environmental inspectors and policemen. In an instant, the whole valley freezes, the men hide in the bushes. This watchman stands on a hill and transmits by radio that an unknown boat is passing through the area where work is underway.

The fine for illegal fishing for mammoth tusks is only $45. But if the seeker is caught three times, a more serious punishment is provided.

One seeker said to me, "I know it's bad, but what can I do? I don't have a job and I have a lot of kids."

Every year, the number of searchers in Yakutia, which is eight times larger than Germany, is growing. Only on this 120-kilometer section of one of the rivers there are three camps of seekers. And the more in neighboring towns they talk about the opportunity to suddenly get rich, the faster this business will grow.

About 10 thousand years ago, northern Siberia was inhabited by shaggy giants called mammoths. The now-extinct genus of mammals suffered from rising temperatures at the end of the last ice age, which flooded and reduced their habitat.

The animals were imprisoned on isolated islands, from where there was not the slightest chance of returning to the mainland. Some populations, imprisoned in these areas of land in the east and north of Siberia, lingered and died out about 3700 years ago.

Today, almost all the extraction of mammoth tusks in the expanses of Siberia is illegal, and about 90% of the "jewels" obtained end up in China, where the ancient tradition of ivory carving is very revered. The rapid growth in demand causes some concern among researchers, since it leads to the loss of valuable data about the animals that lived on this earth, the tusks of which contain information about climate, food and the environment.Maybe millions, if not more, mammoth tusks are still locked in the permafrost of Siberia, but to find them every year At present, a kilogram of high-quality mammoth bones on the black market costs about 25 thousand rubles, and in Chinese antique shops the price for one skillfully carved tusk can reach a million dollars.

A new type of "gold rush" has appeared in Yakutia. Only miners at the local "mines" do not pan for gold, but for mammoth tusks. It turns out that there is a huge demand for ancient bones in many countries of the world, and potential buyers are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for these fossils. How does the extraction of tusks take place and is it legal?

A camp somewhere far away in the tundra, a fire, a tent and the earth dug up and down - this is how it is, the harsh life of the Yakut prospectors. Today, the extraction of mammoth ivory in the Republic of Sakha is a very profitable business. For example, the weight of a woolly rhinoceros horn reaches 5 kg, and its 1 kg costs at least 450 thousand rubles (price from resellers). The demand for such minerals is great. Bones of Siberian mammoths are taken to the USA, Germany, South Korea, Vietnam. But the largest flow goes to China. Right in the villages, the Chinese buy tusks. So in the deaf Yakut villages appeared millionaires, and even dollar ones. The prospectors claim that they work under a license. It can indeed be obtained from local authorities. In fact, this is a license for subsoil use. The problem is that at the federal level, this area, in general, is not regulated in any way.

Boris Kokotov, a member of the Expert Council of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources and Nature Management, says that the problem is that mammoth tusks are not included in the list of minerals. Therefore, the issue of treating mammoth tusks as minerals and the corresponding consequences of such an attitude cannot be felt by those who illegally extract them in full. Another question is how this production will affect the ecosystem. Prospectors use powerful hydrants and erode large amounts of permafrost. It often happens that these remains are located along the banks of reservoirs. Naturally, such erosion leads to the collapse of the banks of reservoirs, naturally, the hydrology of the reservoir changes.

According to estimates, from 140 to 185 thousand tons of mammoth bone are concentrated only within the land part of the North Yakut bone province. And in total, up to 70% of its world reserves are concentrated in Yakutia. An almost inexhaustible "gold mine" for tusk hunters.