DARTMOUTH, N.H. (WBZ NewsRadio) - A Dartmouth College researcher says there's new evidence that the earliest inhabitants of the New England region may have encountered mammoths. Dr. Nathaniel Kitchel is basing his findings off of a newly-rediscovered woolly mammoth rib bone, found at Mount Holly, Vermont in the 1800's.
The bone had sat, disregarded, in the Dartmouth archives until Kitchel stumbled upon it last year. After dating the mammoth bone, Kitchel and his team found the mammoth bone was probably around 12,800 years old -- about the same time that the first Native Americans came to the region.
"It's possible the first people may have shared the landscape with the last mammoths," Kitchel said. He said the best part of publishing the study on the mammoth has been all the public interest it's received.
"I think it's really cool that, in some small part, this research might help others learn more about the natural history of New England," he said.
WBZ's Madison Rogers (@madisonwbz) reports:
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