She was chanced upon by a gold miner named Travis Mudry, astoundingly preserved over all those years thanks to the muddy permafrost tomb that she lay in.
Geneticists, led by Harvard Medical School’s George Church, are looking to bring the woolly mammoth, last seen roughly 10 000 years ago during the Ice Age, back to life.
How we think about the mammoth has changed considerably over the millennia. Many years ago, it was quite a catch.
A juvenile mammoth – nicknamed “Yuka” – was found entombed in Siberian ice near the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and shows signs of being cut open by ancient people. The frozen carcass is believed to be at least 10 000 years old – and could prove to be the first mammoth carcass revealing signs of human interaction in the region.