Elementary school students’ composition on exhibition of mammoth elephant fossils

The mammoth fossil exhibition is held at the Huining County Museum. The exhibition is divided into two units: family members and evolutionary history of the genus Mammoth, Chinese mammoth fossils, and Huining Quanping mammoth fossils. It mainly focuses on the restored Quanping mammoth skeleton and elephant fossil specimens in the collection, supplemented by pictures. This paper comprehensively displays the birth, evolution, migration and extinction history of the genus Mammoth, and compares the ecological environment of the Quanping Mammoth era with the modern ecological environment. The exhibition will be open to the public free of charge for a long time as a new basic display of the Huining County Museum.

The unearthed site of the Quanping mammoth fossil is located on the cliff of Wujiagou, Hougou Society, Quanping Village, Xinzhuang Township, Huining County. In May 2008, Wu Xinghu, a college student from Huining, first discovered and tried to excavate some fossils. After receiving the report, the county cultural relics census team immediately took protective measures and conducted excavations. The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences examined the unearthed fossils. The ancient elephant skull fossils were restored and protected and the skeleton was replicated. After identification, this is the first relatively complete early mammoth skull fossil discovered in China (similar to the Romanian elephant). It belongs to the Pliocene Epoch (about 3 to 5 million years ago). It is a useful tool for studying the mammoth group in Eurasia. The origin and evolution of continents provide new materials with important scientific research value. In December 2011, the fossil unearthed site was selected into the "Top 100 New Discoveries of the Third National Cultural Relics Census". In August 2012 and August 2013, a joint expedition team composed of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Gansu Provincial Museum, and the Huining County Museum conducted two geological surveys of the fossil site and divided the strata in detail. Paleomagnetism, clay minerals and other dating and sedimentological samples were collected from each layer. The implementation of these works laid a good foundation for the exhibition.