Is This Genuine Mammoth Hair?

[Carcharodontosaurus]

I have been wanting a sample of mammoth hair of quite a long time. However, even with small and inexpensive samples, I am concerned about authenticity. There is a seller on eBay selling samples of mammoth hair in grams. Each gram seems like a decent sample, so I am tempted. However, I am not sure of the hair's authenticity.

Since the pictures are too big to use as attachments, I have linked to them:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTAwMFg4MDA=/z/jXkAAOxyJypTlcmk/$_57.JPG

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODAwWDEwMDA=/z/V7gAAOxyaxtTlcmn/$_57.JPG?rt=nc

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODAwWDEwMDA=/z/jyEAAOxy9dVTlcmn/$_57.JPG?rt=nc

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODAwWDEwMDA=/z/jbcAAOxyJypTlcmn/$_57.JPG?rt=nc

Are there any experts who can help me with this?

[painshill]

There's no possible way to authenticate it from pictures but yes, it looks plausibly mammuthian (is that a real word or did I just make it up?)

The only comment I would make is that most of the material I have is rather more reddish in colour, which is not the original colouration but from iron-staining (which the hair seems to readily pick up).

[Taogan]

It looks possible, but mine is also more reddish. You really need to be sure of your importer on this sort of material.

[Carcharodontosaurus]

I think I'll pass on this one. Thanks.

[painshill]

This may help a bit.

Woolly mammoths had a dual coat consisting of fine inner hairs plus coarse outer “guard hairs”. The hairs of the inner coat were slightly curly, around 8 centimetres or so in length when stretched out, with a diameter of about 50 microns. The guard hairs were typically 30-90 centimetres long (depending on the age of the animal and the body area) with a diameter of about 500 microns. The tail also had long hairs which were thicker still.

Mammoths moulted in the spring and genuine hair is mostly likely to be clumps of moult that were preserved in frozen tundra. These clumps would be expected to have significant quantities of the guard hairs, since those largely represented the winter coat.

I said earlier that the typical reddish brown colour was from iron staining (which is what I had been told) but some sources say it’s a post-mortem bleaching effect. It may be a combination of the two. Whichever, it’s not a conclusive diagnostic. Most mammoths probably had dark brown to black hair in vivo but with lighter-coloured individuals not uncommon and occasional gingers too.

The commonest material sold improperly as mammoth hair is modern yak hair. Yak down is short and woolly – around 4 – 7 centimetres long and around 15 - 18 microns thick. The guard hairs are around 6 -7 centimetres long and 18 - 52 microns in diameter. Yak also have outer hairs around 5 inches long with a diameter greater than 52 microns but not approaching the 500 microns of mammoth. In males, those outer hairs may form a “skirt” round the torso that almost reaches to the ground and can be considerably longer (but still nowhere near as thick as mammoth).

So, I would say that if a sample contains significant quantities of hairs below 50 microns in diameter; or has hairs that are much thinner, down to 18 microns; or contains no master hairs with diameters in the region of 500 microns then its fake… and most likely from yak. But you need a microscope with measurement capability to check these things. Yak are generally quite dark in colour (blackish to brown) but often have a patchy coat with rusty-brown and creamy-brown portions. The fakers generally bleach yak material to a relatively uniform mid-pale brown colour.

Elephant hair – as you might expect – actually has the closest resemblance to mammoth hair but isn’t widely used by fakers for reasons of availability (both commercially and on the elephants). It would also need some colour manipulation from dying.

There’s an interesting video here with some pointers about a clump of mammoth hair in a small British museum (the microscopy starts at 3 minutes 20 into the clip):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT1IwrH66pU

[Blacksambellamy1]

Could you send a sample to be carbon dated ?

[Doctor Mud]

7 minutes ago, Blacksambellamy1 said:

Could you send a sample to be carbon dated ?

 

Radiocarbon dating would be a good way to tell if the hair was old enough to be mammoth - usually pre-Holocene or greater than 12,000 years old.

 

The problem is the expense for the casual collector. Unless you had a big sample, you would have to date the hair using accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) which costs upwards of $300 at the cheap labs.

 

However, I do happen to work at an ams facility, so it could be interesting to buy some hair from different suppliers and slip it in to a run on the machine. 

With the dating, you would still need to be careful and need some knowledge of fibers as if it is a synthetic fiber it could still return an old date, possibly a “beyond radiocarbon” result or greater than 60,000 years. This is because pretty much all radiocarbon decays after this amount of time and synthetic fibers could be derived from hydrocarbons that are very old.

 

I wonder if there are other ways of telling authenticity - e.g. under the microscope.

[Blacksambellamy1]

Could you send a sample to be carbon dated ?

[Blacksambellamy1]

I purchased that and would like to know for sure it’s real.  It’s a nice clump

[Mark Kmiecik]

10 hours ago, Blacksambellamy1 said:

I purchased that and would like to know for sure it’s real.  It’s a nice clump

Carbon dating will probably cost more than $300. I suppose you can call a lab that does it and ask. The older, better known labs, have probably tested some before and give you a solid price. You could inquire at you local natural history museum where they have their items tested.

[peystone]

Theres someone I know on facebook who can identify through examining with a microscope, if you want thier contact let me know.

[caldigger]

It may very well be real mammoth hair.

But somewhere in the back of my mind, with the amounts of this stuff you see for sale I have always imagined they just clip a bit off these guys and put it in a bag.

            Scottish Highland Cattle 

[Bone Daddy]

I deal in rarities and exotics. And one helpful question to ask yourself is : what is the incentive to fake a particular item?

 

If I was looking to pull a scam, I wouldn't be messing around with $20-$50 clumps of hair on online.

 

There is a ton of legit mammoth hair on the market. I wouldn't worry about this one.

 

 

[Bone Daddy]

Seriously? This website auto-edits out the word [sales site name redacted]?

 

Why?

 

 

[Kane]

26 minutes ago, Bone Daddy said:

Seriously? This website auto-edits out the word [sales site name redacted]?

 

Why?

 

 

Our policy is to not name specific sellers or sites as scrutiny of the authenticity of a specimen should be based on diagnostic criteria, whereas the sales aspect would be considered superfluous to that goal.  

[Bone Daddy]

4 hours ago, Kane said:

Our policy is to not name specific sellers or sites as scrutiny of the authenticity of a specimen should be based on diagnostic criteria, whereas the sales aspect would be considered superfluous to that goal.  

 

Thanks. That's reasonable. It just surprised me because it's such a common venue that it's almost synonymous with online "flea market".  I guess you folks got tired of repeatedly correcting people over the years and just set the filter to catch it instead.  I never noticed this before because I don't mess with that particular online flea market much and I also generally stay out of authenticity debates.

Authenticity is such a touchy subject and the best way to prevent authenticity issues is to insist upon solid provenance before buying. Provenance is everything. That is why I mostly avoid that other venue (the online flea market) - it's a minefield of mistakenly ID'ed specimens, misrepresented specimens, fraudulent specimens, and sellers of dubious repute.

 

Best regards.