As the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – colloquially known as COP27 comes to an end, now as ever seems like a good chance to reflect on environmental responsibility.

It is well documented that climate change causes biodiversity and habit loss and it is always good to look at history to remind us of the past and how we might change for a better future.

The tusk and tooth from a woolly mammoth are by far the oldest items in the Museum’s collection and come from a creature who roamed these parts five million years ago.

They can be seen in Slough Museum’s Origins of Slough Pod on the ground floor of The Curve.

The Pod tells how the word ‘Slough’ comes from the Old English for ‘marsh’ and was used because the area the town was built on was mostly marshland.

On display are the tusk and tooth of a woolly mammoth, discovered in a local pit in the 1960s.

This now-extinct prehistoric beast was about the size and shape of an elephant, disappearing from the mainland at the end of the Palaeolithic period 10,000 years ago.

Woolly mammoths are extinct relatives of today’s elephants.

Woolly mammoths lived during the last ice age, and they may have died off when the weather became warmer and their food supply changed. Humans may also be partly responsible for their disappearance due to hunting.

Although the word “mammoth” has come to mean “huge,” woolly mammoths were probably about the size of African elephants.

Their ears were smaller than those of today’s elephants. This was probably an adaptation to the cold climate that kept their ears closer to their heads and kept them warmer.

Their tusks were very long, about 15 feet (five meters) and were used for fighting and digging in the deep snow

Mammoths were herbivores and ate mostly grass, but also ate other types of plants and flowers.

We even have a create a woolly mammoth activity as part of our regular Make with the Museum activities at The Curve.

To all the Heads of State, ministers, negotiators, climate activists, mayors, civil society representatives, and CEOs heading off from the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh – remember the fate of the woolly mammoth and lets all act now before its too late for other animals on our shared Earth.

Check our website sloughmuseum.co.uk and @SloughMuseum for more details.