Mammoth Tooth Unearthed in Central Nizhny Novgorod

A team of archaeologists has discovered the tooth of a young woolly mammoth in the heart of Nizhny Novgorod, according to a statement from regional governor Gleb Nikitin. The fossil was found on the slope of the historic Pochainsky Ravine, about two meters beneath the current surface level. Governor Nikitin noted that the city has a long record of such discoveries. In the 1930s, for instance, archaeologists unearthed part of a mammoth skull with two molars near the foot of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. "Research confirms that mammoths once roamed the Middle Volga region. They began to disappear around 11,000 years ago, during a period of sudden climate warming and vegetation change," said Nikitin. A Glimpse Into the Ice Age The find supports long-standing paleontological evidence that the Middle Volga area was once home to woolly mammoths, which went extinct at the end of the last Ice Age. The region's shifting climate and ecology likely played a role in their extinction.