20Ia: Which Mammoth Species?
Identifying Mammoth Teeth
By Thomas Thurman
16/April/2026
Are there unrecognized woolly mammoth teeth sitting in Georgia collections?
Two species of mammoth occur in North America:
Two species of mammoth occur in North America:
- The Columbian mammoth
- Mammuthus columbi
- The woolly mammoth
- Mammuthus primigenius
The typical fossil is a tooth, though the various skeletal bones are also well known and in good supply, teeth are the toughest things a body makes. Mammoth teeth are particularly large and robust. Frequently, only teeth are found. The problem is, Columbian and wooly mammoth teeth are almost indistinguishable. Almost.
There are other members of the large elephant family (Elephantidae) in the USA, but only two mammoths and they’re today’s topic.
The range of the Columbian mammoth is usually depicted as dominating the USA and Mexico, while it could certainly endure some cold, it was a temperate climate animal and wasn’t cold adapted.
The wooly mammoth is typically shown, as in this Wikipedia map, occurring in Canada and the extreme northeastern USA. The woolly mammoth is a cold adapted animal.
Just looking at his map of their respected ranges would make one assume any Georgia tooth was from a Columbian mammoth. That might be a mistake.
This question of cold adaptation is important, the possibility of a woolly mammoth in Georgia says something about the contemporary climate. Considering these are Late P0leistocene fossils, indigenous people may well have been present in Georgia when such a mammoth lived. Again, a cold adapted woolly mammoth represents a different climate, and potentially a culturally different people, than a temperate climate Columbian mammoth.
As we’ve seen with Bartow County’s Ladd’s quarry (see page 20N of the website) both caribou and elk fossils, cold adapted species, are known from Bartow County as well as modern alligators and the giant land tortoise Hesperotestudo crassiscutata, which are very cold intolerant species.
The climate was very dynamic in the Late Pleistocene, swinging back and for the between significantly colder and significantly warmer than today. Modern alligators cannot endure the cold of a typical, modern Bartow County winter. But modern alligators lived there at points in the Late Pleistocene. As we’ve seen elsewhere on this site, Bartow County was both warmer and colder than it is today.
The Columbian mammoth was named and described from a single tooth found in coastal Georgia in the 1800s. (See Page 20M; The Bone Bed, of this website.) There’s no doubt that herds of Columbian mammoths walked temperate Georgia, evidence of this is well established.
But Georgia hasn’t always been temperate.
In 1974 Dr. Michael Voorhies, Professor of Paleontology at the University of Georgia, recovered a “partial upper right molar of a mammoth (specimen# UGV-5)” tooth from Little Kettle Creek in Wilkes County, GA. (This 1974 paper can be downloaded at the base of this page.) Voorhies continues “Because of breakage neither the maximum length nor maximum width of the specimen are determinable.”
The little Kettle Creek finds can be reviewed on page 20I; Pleistocene Vertebrate Fossils On Georgia’s Piedmont, of this website.
A few years earlier, in 1969, Emiliano Aguirre published a paper in Science offering a method to differentiate between Columbian and Woolly mammoth teeth. (His paper can also be downloaded at the base of this page.)
Aguirre had access to 24 woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and 10 Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) teeth. A good foundation for comparison. Voorhies was also aware of similar research published by F.C. Whitmore, K.O. Emory, H.B.S. Cooke, & D.J.P. Swift (1967) as well a paper by L.C. David, R.E. Eshelman, & J.C. Prior (1972).
Using Aguirre’s techniques, Voorhies tentatively identified his mammoth tooth as coming from a woolly mammoth. Voorhies states “That the specimen is a molar rather than a premolar is shown by its possession of a minimum of 13 dental lamellae, no more than 12 being present in premolars.”
Voorhies goes on to state “The thickness of enamel in the Little Kettle Creek specimen (measured by the technique of Aguirre, 1969) is 1.6mm and the number of enamel plates per 100mm of occlusal surface is 10. In both these features the Georgia specimen falls within the range of Mammuthus primigenius, the woolly mammoth, as determined by Aguirre (1969), and Whitmore (1967) for the ultimate and penultimate molars. Since these authors give no data for the first molar, however, and since the specimen at hand may, in fact, be a first molar, no definite conclusions regarding the identity of the Little Kettle Creek mammoth can me made without additional material.”
Voorhies thought he had a Woolly mammoth molar, not a Columbina mammoth, but he couldn’t confirm this. He placed the tooth into UGA’s collection specimen# UGV-5. Sadly, the tooth has apparently been lost and is no longer available for review.
We can, however, look at the actual distribution of woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) based on published reports in the Paleobiology Database and the collection in the Smithsonian’s NMNH database. All of these have a collection source listed at least to the state level.
Compiling this information gives up a map that shows the woolly mammoth ranged widely across the USA, even as far south as both Carolinas and Florida. Of course, these occurrences may, and probably were, at different points in the Late Pleistocene. As we’ve seen, the climate changed frequently and dramatically. But this information certainly makes it very plausible that Voorhies was correct in his identification of the mammoth tooth as belonging to a woolly mammoth.
Emiliano Aguirre, 1969
I need to thank Asa Kaplan for my copy of Aguirre’s 1969 paper. Asa is a knowledgeable and respected member of our large Georgia’s Fossils Group on Facebook. He forwarded this 50+ year old paper to me.
This is an interesting paper, and I congratulate the author for distilling so much information for distinguishing so many species into the two images below.
I need to thank Asa Kaplan for my copy of Aguirre’s 1969 paper. Asa is a knowledgeable and respected member of our large Georgia’s Fossils Group on Facebook. He forwarded this 50+ year old paper to me.
This is an interesting paper, and I congratulate the author for distilling so much information for distinguishing so many species into the two images below.
Robert G Dumas
Merrell Locality, Southwest Montana
I also need to thank Tony Johnson from the Georgia’s Fossils Facebook Group for alerting me to the 2005 Merrell Locality paper from the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University. It’s also downloadable below.
The Merrell Locality paper has extensive references but does not reference Aguirre’s 1969 work. I assume Dumas was unaware of the 1969 paper. Since Dumas reaches the same general conclusions on how to distinguish Columbian and Woolly mammoth teeth, these two papers cleanly corroborate each other, reinforcing the findings.
Merrell Locality, Southwest Montana
I also need to thank Tony Johnson from the Georgia’s Fossils Facebook Group for alerting me to the 2005 Merrell Locality paper from the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University. It’s also downloadable below.
The Merrell Locality paper has extensive references but does not reference Aguirre’s 1969 work. I assume Dumas was unaware of the 1969 paper. Since Dumas reaches the same general conclusions on how to distinguish Columbian and Woolly mammoth teeth, these two papers cleanly corroborate each other, reinforcing the findings.
Dumas put the information distinguishing Columbian and Woolly mammoth teeth into a chart on the top of page 90. (See above) As a whole, the Merrell Locality paper has many excellent illustrations as well including quality, archeological drawings of indigenous projectile and spear points.
Below is a list of the Woolly mammoth occurrences from the Paleobiology Database and the Smithsonian NMNH. This is not a complete list, I only show each state a single time in order to create a map. Many states (including Florida) had multiple woolly mammoth finds. In my mind, this makes it highly likely, even probable, that Georgia hosted herds of woolly mammoth during the colder periods of the Late Pleistocene.
That makes me wonder if there are woolly mammoth teeth in some of the existing Georgia collections.
The Paleobiology Database (PBDB Navigator)
California
California
- San Pedro Bay
- W.P. Blake, 1855
- Remains of the mammoth and mastodon in California
- American Journal of Science 19: Page 133
- Grinnell, Iowa
- E.H. Barbour, 1980
- Remains of a Primitive Elephant Found in Grinnell, Iowa
- Science: 16, Page 263
- Tiger Butte
- C.L. Hill, 2001
- Pleistocene mammals of Montana and their geologic context.
- Museum of the Rockies Occassional Paper 3:pgaes 127-144
- Upper Queensbury, Harris Farm
- C.A. Hartnagel & S.C. Sherman, 1922
- The mastodons, mammoths and other Pleistocene mammals of New York State, being a descriptive record of all known occurrences.
- New York State Museum Bulletin 241-242: Pages 1-110
- Philadelphia
- Anonymous, 1932
- Important mammoth find uncovered on golf course
- Science News Letter 22: pages 255-256
- Whitesburg, Tennessee
- A.R. Cahn, 1939
- Pleistocene fossils from a cave in Anderson County, Tennessee.
- Journal of Mammalogy 20(2): Pages 248-250
- Rock Creek, Mayfield Ranch (South, Southeast of Amarillo)
- E.D. Cope, 1893
- A preliminary report on the vertebrate paleontology of the Llano Estacado
- Fourth Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Texas 1892: 11-136
- Payson, Utah
- G.H. Hansen, 1928
- Hairy Mammoth Skeleton in Utah
- Science 68: Page 621
- Saltville, Virginia
- C.E. Ray, B.N. Cooper, & W.X. Benninghoff, 1967
- Fossil Mammal and Pollen in a Late Pleistocene Deposit at Saltville, Virginia
- Journal of Paleontology 41(3): Pages 608-622
- Cheney, Washington
- O.W. Freeman, 1926
- Mammoth found in loess of Washington
- Science 64: page 477
- Mud Lake (& others), Wisconsin
- E. Johnson, 2006
- The taphonomy of mammoth localities in southeastern Wisconsin (USA)
- Quaternary International 145-145: 58-78
Smithsonian NMNH
(Online database Paleobiology Collections Search)
(Not a complete list, but all USA states reporting woolly mammoth material shown)
Arizona (No further details)
(Online database Paleobiology Collections Search)
(Not a complete list, but all USA states reporting woolly mammoth material shown)
Arizona (No further details)
- Specimen# PAL635314
- Collector & year unrecorded
- Specimen# V10621
- Collector; C.T. Earle (undated)
- Specimen# V192
- Collector unknown
- Specimen# V9393
- Collector; Maryland Geological Society, (undated)
- Specimen# PAL243749
- Collector; E. Riccio, 1976
- Specimen# V4836
- Collector; E. Schon, 1900
- Specimen# PAL 635208
- Collector: J. Mercur
- Specimen# V 8957
- Collector; I. Sayles, 1885
- Specimen# V9232
- Collector; D.V. Schuchardt, 1915
- Specimen# PAL 636257
- Collector; W.D. Mount, 1896
Downloadable research papers used for this page
| voorhies_1974_peidmont.pdf |
| aguirre_evolutionary_history_of_the_elephant_1969_science_from_asa_kaplan.pdf |
| hill_david_merrell_site_page_80.pdf |
References
- Voorhies, M. R.; Pleistocene Vertebrates with Boreal Affinities in the Georgia Piedmont, Quaternary Research, Volume 4, Issue 1, Pg 85-93, March 1974
- Aguirre, Emiliano; Evolutionary History of the Elephant; Science, 20/June/1969, Pages 1366-1375
- Dundas, Robert G.; The Late Pleistocene Vertebrate Fauna, Page 79-90; The Merrell Locality & Centennial Valley, Southwest Montana; Edited by Hill, Christopher L. & Davis, Leslie B.; Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, 2005