21 July 2025

On our previous trip to Finland we visited Kuopio Museum where one of the main attractions is the woolly mammoth replica, above. Unveiled in 1999, he was modeled after a well-preserved frozen mammoth found in 1799 in Siberia’s Lena River valley. At its death the frozen mammoth was about 30 years old, weighed 5,000 to 5,500 pounds (more than 2.5 tons) and stood over three meters (over 10 feet) at the shoulder[1]. For a sense of scale that’s my husband gazing at the mammoth.

When I saw the Kuopio mammoth I couldn’t help but think of a 2006 New Yorker cartoon by Alex Gregory that shows a caveman and his wife looking at a slain beast he’d brought home for dinner. And she says, “This is mastodon. I told you to get mammoth.”(<– Click the link to see the cartoon) Her shopping complaint has stayed with me ever since and made me wonder about the animals.

1. Were mammoths and mastodons alive at the same time?
2. Did their ranges overlap? If so, where?
3. Did humans encounter both beasts?
4. Supposing #3 is true, how did Mrs. Caveman tell the difference between a mammoth and a mastodon?

Mammoths (Mammuthus sp.) are 4 evolutionary splits away from a common ancestor with mastodons, and they have a living relative, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Mastodons (Mammut sp.) were a stand alone branch that went extinct without splitting into descendants.

1. Were woolly mammoths and American mastodons alive at the same time? Yes.

Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) first evolved from steppe mammoths in eastern Siberia around 700,000 to 300,000 years ago and spread across northern Asia, Europe, and North America. Most of them went extinct 11,000 years ago. The last population remained on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean and went extinct 4,000 years ago.

Mastodons (Mammut sp.) first appeared around 27 to 30 million years ago. A well known species, Mammut americanus, became widespread in North America during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.78 million to 11,000 years ago) and went extinct about 11,000 years ago.

2. Did their ranges overlap and where? Yes. Notably in North America.

The woolly mammoth had a circumpolar range as shown on this map from arcticportal.org. Amazingly mammoths were present in both southern Finland and Pittsburgh (top edge of map). (Click on the image to see an annotated version that points to both locations.)

I have been unable to find a range map for mastodons but this fossil site map of two species, M. americanum and M. pacificus, shows that mastodons were widely distributed in North America. The northern part of their range would have overlapped with the woolly mammoth.

3. Did humans encounter both beasts? Yes. A Wikipedia excerpt about mastodons explains that they killed both. With so many woolly mammoth kill sites compared to mastodons, did Clovis people prefer mammoths? Or were they just easier to catch?

As of present, 2 definite Mammut [mastodon] kill sites compatible with Clovis lithic technology have been recorded compared to 15 of Mammuthus [woolly mammoth] and 1 of Cuvieronius [yet another elephant relative].

— Wikipedia: Mastodon

And their teeth were noticeably different. See the National Park Service’s Mastodon or Mammoth article for details. Mrs. Caveman knew what she was talking about.

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[1] This portion of the opening paragraph is paraphrased from Wikipedia: Kuopio Museum.