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The Ilford brick pits, mammoths of Ilford, TQ43718609
Notes compiled by Gerald Lucy for Essex Field Club website
Recent research has revealed that the mammoths of Ilford (at least from Uphall Pit) are not, as was thought, an early form of the familiar woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius , but a late and slightly smaller form of the ‘steppe mammoth’ Mammuthus trogontherii. This conclusion has been reached by studying the molar teeth which have fewer enamel ‘plates’ and are therefore more ‘primitive’ -
Ilford is one of the world’s foremost sites for fossils but, apart from the plaque in Ilford Lane and the items in Redbridge Museum, there is nothing here to commemorate this. An initiative known as ‘The Ilford Mammoth Project’ is aiming to change this by erecting a life-