‘Mammoth Central’ Found at Mexico Airport Construction Site

Ruben Manzanilla Lopez of the National Anthropology Institute, who is responsible for the preservation work in the area, shows the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered in the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport in the Santa Lucia military base, Mexico, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. Marco Ugarte/AP Photo

The number of mammoth skeletons recovered at an airport construction site north of Mexico City has risen to at least 200, with a large number still to be excavated, experts said on Sept. 3.

Archeologists hope the site that has become “mammoth central”—the shores of an ancient lake bed that both attracted and trapped mammoths in its marshy soil—may help solve the riddle of their extinction.