The mammoth was discovered in 1997 by the Jarkov family, nomadic reindeer herders of the Dolgon people. Eight to ten inches of the left tusk protruded from a ridge in the tundra. This was "instant wealth" to the Jarkov family, and as they dug the tusk free, they discovered the right tusk still attached to the cranium. They harvested both tusks for sale.

Bernard heard of the exceptional tusk in a sauna in Khatanga. He met the Jarkov family, who told him the rest of the mammoth was still there. He went to the site, 354 km NW of Khatanga, where it had just snowed. The Jarkov’s began to dig and quickly had mammoth hair exposed. The cranium and mandible had been "cleaned" by bacteria during the surface thaw. Bernard used a hair dryer to dry the hair and wool and found he could smell the mammoth, the vegetation, and the earth. He became excited about the possibility of extracting the mammoth.

A team of scientists was selected for the project: Nikolai Vereschagin and Alexi Thikonov from Russia; Paul Sondaar and Dick Mol from the Netherlands; Yves Coppen from France; and myself from the United States. A press release was held in

Larry Agenbroad (r) and Dick Mol (l; Amsterdam, The Netherlands) with tusks from the Jarkov Mammoth, Taimyr Peninsula.

Hot Springs, South Dakota, in July 1999, during filming at the Mammoth site there. Discovery Channel funded much of the expedition in return for film rights. The documentary they are producing is entitled "Raising the Mammoth" and will be televised on March 12, 2000.

We arrived at the field site in September. The trenches to free the ice block containing the mammoth had been started, but contained meltwater and mud from the thawed surface layer. The first snowfall of the season came that night and everyone cheered at the beginning of the freeze, which would make the excavation easier. Digging the trench by hand proceeded slowly. A fuel shortage delayed the arrival of a pneumatic jack hammer. Finally, the arrival of a large generator allowed use of the jack hammer, and the trenches proceeded quickly. We could not assess the condition of the mammoth remains in the block, as the ice was opaque.

The Jarkov family was often present in camp watching our progress. They arrived via reindeer sleigh, or on foot, looking for domesticated reindeer which had joined a wild herd. The temperature hovered around -25° C. Windchill often made it feel like -40° C.

Eventually, the ice block was air-lifted to Khatanga where it is now in a permafrost tunnel at -12° to -15°C year-round. Interested researchers are submitting proposals to study the mammoth, and early in 2000, the scientific members of the expedition will meet to determine scheduling and research priorities.

The media is overly interested in the idea of cloning a woolly mammoth. They miss the most important accomplishment; that for the first time a frozen Pleistocene animal has been carefully removed from the permafrost as a complete animal, and placed in a controlled atmosphere where it can be studied. Other frozen animals await, including other species of the Siberian mammoth fauna. A long-range goal would include study of these extinct animals, leading to the reconstruction of this steppe tundra of the Taimyr Peninsula. It may also provide clues to the cause(s) of extinction of the late Pleistocene megafauna in that region.