Terrific Tuskers

Mammoth tusks are remarkable – you can see part of one in the Settlement gallery, in the “landscape and people” case (when we reopen). 

They are incisor teeth that grow from sockets in the upper jaw (there were no incisors on the lower jaw). Mammoths only had one adult set, although they had five adult sets of molars. The tusks could grow to incredible sizes. The longest ever recorded was 4.2m long and weighed a staggering 91kg! This came from a male, but it seems that females had them too. About a quarter of the length was in the socket.

Mammoth tusks are bigger than those of modern elephants, and much more curved. They used them for similar tasks – manipulating things, foraging, and of course, fighting, but perhaps also to sweep snow off the grass they ate. Modern elephants are right or left “tusked” (in the same way as we are with our hands), and mammoths may have been too. So one tusk was often more worn than the other.

And if you want to know how old a mammoth was when it died, you can count the rings inside the tusk – just like you can do with a tree! This is because the tusks continued to grow throughout the animal’s life. 

Written by Sarah, Collections Volunteer.