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Siberian excavator worker digs up 2 mln-year-old mammoth tusk

The fragment found in a coal pit near Bezrukovo village is quite big, about two meters long

Archive. The remains of Zhenya the mammoth. The woolly mammoth was discovered by Nenets 11-year-old boy Yevgeny Salinder on Sopochnaya Karga cape in Russia's northernmost peninsula of Taymyr in 2012 ITAR-TASS/Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Archive. The remains of Zhenya the mammoth. The woolly mammoth was discovered by Nenets 11-year-old boy Yevgeny Salinder on Sopochnaya Karga cape in Russia's northernmost peninsula of Taymyr in 2012

© ITAR-TASS/Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

KEMEROVO, January 21 (Itar-Tass) - Digging for coal in the Kemerovo region of Russia’s Siberia, an excavator operator unearthed the tusk of a mammoth supposedly alive about two million years ago, stuck within the excavator bucket's teeth, Anatoly Vasiliev, director of the regional Myski Museum of History and Ethnography said on Tuesday.

“The fragment found in a coal pit near Bezrukovo village is quite big, about two meters long,” he said. “But it is broken in four pieces during the works. The largest section is about 45 centimeters long.”

“The tusk was dug out from about 2.5-3 meters below the ground surface and therefore, we can suppose that its age is about two million years,” Vasiliev said, adding that some part of the tusk might have been dug up before but it remained unnoticed.

“We have taken photographs and videoed the tusk and the place where it was found,” he added. Fragments of the tusk will be forwarded to scientists for further study.

“Our current task is to determine the exact age of the tusk,” Vasiliev said. “This requires expert examination. We will turn to specialists from Novokuznetsk and we will decide then where exactly research can be conducted.

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