Details

LOT 2289

Woolly Mammoth Bone Bead Necklace String

PLEISTOCENE PERIOD, 2.6 MILLION-11,700 YEARS B.P.

23 5/8 in. (155 grams, 60 cm).

Restrung using recently polished Mammuthus primigenius bone beads. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Acquired on the UK art market before 2000.
Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.

Literature

See Guide to the Elephants (Recent and Fossil) in the British Museum (Natural History), BM, 1922, pp.35-47, for discussion.

Footnotes

The mammoth lineage branched from the Asian elephant around 6 million years ago, and later on the Woolly Mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, evolved in eastern Siberia. Woolly mammoths, being slightly smaller than living African elephants, were foragers and ate grass, as well as small, nutritious flowering plants that flourished in the environment where they lived. They may also have used their curved tusks to dig through snow and eat plants that other foragers couldn't get to.