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- Gold miners in the Yukon are discovering mummified ancient animals from the Ice Age.
- Paleontologists often gather truckloads of fossils from the mines, but mummies are special and rare.
- Photos from inside the gold mines and the lab offer a glimpse at the ancient past.
Miners are digging up more than just gold in the Yukon, Canada’s frigid northwestern territory bordering Alaska.
They keep discovering ancient bones and mummified animals, from a perfectly frozen 57,000-year-old wolf pup to a ball of fur and bones that used to be a squirrel.
These creatures are remarkably well-preserved snapshots of the Ice Age, when glaciers covered northern North America.
Because most of Earth’s water was trapped in those glaciers, sea levels were so low that they exposed a vast grassy steppe stretching from the Yukon to Siberia, where megafauna like lions, mammoths, and scimitar cats roamed.
Now paleontologists can study those animals’ frozen and mummified remains, revealing the Ice Age’s secrets.
