Mammoth meat--fit to eat?

From
Date
Dear friends,

A nice lady in ourlocal fossil club (The Fossil Society, CMNH), writes 
a children's column for our quarterly newsletter, and wants to print a 
paragraph about mammoth fossils.  Her draft says that numerous 
carcasses have been found "perfectly preserved" in Alaska and Siberia, 
with the meat so fresh that the local people fed it to their dogs.  
I've read similar claims in many popular books and articles.  For 
example, some say Alexander the Great and his army feasted on mammoth 
meat.  Others claim that the numbers of carcasses so vast that the 
ground was largely composed of them, and that they likely numbered into 
the tens or hundreds of thousands.  Others made similar claims based on 
the reportedly huge tusk-ivory trade once made from such specimens.  
     However, I also recall (I don't remember exactly where) skeptical 
reviews noting that the numbers of carcasses found and the typical 
preservation of them has been greatly exaggerated (dozens of whole 
carcasses, not thousands), and that any meat on the remains is 
generally highly decomposed, putrid, and non-edible.  In short, they 
regarded the rumors as dubious legends.  I'd like to give the 
column-writer some references to reliable info on the subject, if I am 
going to question her statements.  Can anyone shed light on this 
subject, or offer any good references?

Thanks.

Glen J. Kuban
The Fossil Society
Cleveland, OH
paleo@ix.netcom.com