About the Lab

The Mammoth History Lab is a group of historical researchers working to unravel the history of permafrost-preserved mammoths and other Pleistocene creatures. Led by Professor Rebecca Woods, we track the movement of these animals out of the ground of Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon, into museum collections, and beyond. We want to know, how did naturalists encounter frozen mammoths in the past? Why were they motivated to look for them? And what were the consequences of this? How did collecting frozen mammoths shape scientific understandings of the Pleistocene era? The circumpolar north? The history of climate change?

These questions are all the more pressing as climate change in our own time alters our relationships to, and understandings of, the Arctic, its past, and its future. With the rise of average temperatures on Earth, the frequency with which permafrost-preserved mammoth bodies emerges is rising, too. From among the most elusive of scientific specimens—only a handful of their remains were collected over the span of the nineteenth century—frozen mammoths have become bellwethers for a warming planet.

At the Mammoth History Lab, we work to trace the conceptual transformation of these remains, from extraordinary exemplars of evolution and extinction to evidence of planetary climate change.

Read more about the team of researchers at the MHL here, and about the work we’re doing in our Field Notes.