Forbes: When did mammoths go extinct?
Environmental DNA can be misleading, UC paleontologist says
Forbes talked to a University of Cincinnati paleontologist about why environmental DNA is not the best barometer for dating extinctions.
UC College of Arts and Sciences assistant professor Joshua Miller was lead author of a paper published in Nature titled “When did mammoths go extinct?” that refuted a previous study suggesting mammoths went extinct much more recently than believed.
“We can radiocarbon date all kinds of things: bones, teeth, charcoal, leaves. That’s very powerful. But currently, we can’t independently date DNA found in sediments,” Miller told Forbes.
Miller said environmental DNA can persist for thousands of years in arctic climates, making it unreliable for dating extinctions.
Miller said mammoths probably went extinct between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago. Some island populations survived longer.
Featured image at top: Cameron Schwalbach, paleontology collections manager for the Cincinnati Museum Center’s Geier Collections and Research Center, and UC assistant professor Joshua Miller examine a mammoth skull. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
UC assistant professor Joshua Miller poses with a bronze mammoth outside the Cincinnati Museum Center's Geier Collections and Research Center. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
UC Geosciences in the News
UC associate professor Joshua Miller examines a mammoth tusk at the Cincinnati Museum Center's Geier Collections and Research Center. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
- Spectrum News: Paleontologist disputes date when mammoths went extinct
- European Times: New study refutes timeline of mammoth extinction
- Science Times: When did mammoth extinction take place?
Related Stories
UC professor leads film students to the future
April 6, 2026
As a kid, at the age of 10, Marty Schiff’s dad gave him a Kodak Brownie movie camera, and that led to a lifetime of creating stories on film. He spent his summers with that camera, making eight-millimeter movies, with a camera that taught him how to thread a projector, change the film in a closet, and tell stories with the medium he loved. “I always wanted to go to Hollywood,” Schiff says. So later he did, with $200 in his pocket, and began a career that has spanned acting, directing, producing—pretty much everything with the exception of costumes (“I’m not really good with a sewing machine,” he says).
High Court offers protections for therapy speech
April 5, 2026
Jennifer Bard, a professor in the Donald P. Klekamp College of Law and the UC Department of Internal Medicine, spoke with journalists about the US Supreme Court ruling granting first amendment protections for speech offered during therapy sessions.
Scientists discover how snakes stand upright without limbs
April 3, 2026
Smithsonian magazine highlights a study co-authored by UC Professor Bruce Jayne, an expert in snake locomotion, about how snakes stand upright without arms or legs.