First family of ice age giants offered at Summers Place Auctions

Posted on | By Sara Morel aka Reclaimed Woman
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West Sussex, UK - Summers Place Auctions 5th Evolution Sale on 21st November 2017 will consist of a male and a female mammoth, a teenage daughter and a one-year-old mammoth. Although the youngest of the group, it is this well-preserved skeleton that is attracting the most attention as it is only the second known almost complete baby mammoth skeleton in the world.

Found together during building works near the Siberian city of Tomsk in 2002, the family went on tour through Germany and Switzerland from 2004 - 2007, and they are now coming up for auction. In addition to the almost intact family group there were also many more scattered bones found at the location during the expedition organised by Trias Geo. Further research of the area where they had been found concluded that this find was one of only two known places in the world which can be classified as a natural burial place for mammoths and which makes it a palaeontogical monument - the other one is in Sevsk, Russia.

As there is no man-caused damage to the bones and as the bones were found in fluvial deposits, it means that the mass mortality of the large group of mammoths in the area was due to a natural phenomenon.

Rupert van der Werff, Summers Place Auctions' Natural History specialist, said: "it was quite a thrill when they arrived in 16 boxes in our gallery in Billingshurst. 'Building' a skeleton comes with a lot of challenges, imagine it to be a bit like doing a rather difficult 3-D puzzle."

Having sold an individual mammoth in 2014 for £150,000, Summers Place Auctions is expecting the family of ice age giants to sell in the region of £250,000 - £400,000.

The word mammoth has outgrown its original meaning and today usually signifies something huge in size, or of great value. Needless to say, online bidding is not available on this lot.
Salvo directory: Summers Place Auctions

Story Type: News