Why and when did mammoths die out? Mammoth World: Origin and Habitat of a Mammoth Map Mammoth Habitat on Earth
In Yakutia, a significant part of all the world's unique finds of mammoths, woolly rhinos, bison, musk ox, cave lions and other animals of a bygone era has been discovered.
Mammoth finds map
The first altered representative of the southern elephants was the steppe mammoth (height at the withers - up to 5 m). In the early Pleistocene era, the steppe mammoth still tried to fight the cold, migrating south in winter and north in summer. A subspecies of the steppe mammoth - the Khazar mammoth - became the ancestor of the woolly mammoth. According to the great Russian explorer of fossils and modern elephants V.E. Garutta, the word “mammoth” is closer to the Estonian “mammoth” (underground mole). The mammoth population appeared 1 - 2 million years ago. The heyday of the development of these giants was at the end of the Pleistocene (100 - 10 thousand years ago). On the territory of Yakutia, in the lower reaches of the interfluve of the Indigirka and Kolyma, a skull of a mammoth was found, which lived 49 thousand years ago. This is the oldest of the mammoths found in Yakutia.
Woolly mammoth
Woolly mammoth
Woolly mammoth - the most exotic animal of the Ice Age, is its symbol. These giants, mammoths at the withers reached 3.5 m and weighed 4-6 tons. The mammoths were protected from the cold by a thick long coat with developed undercoat, which was more than a meter long on the shoulders, hips and sides, as well as a layer of fat up to 9 cm thick. 12–13 thousand years ago, mammoths lived throughout Northern Eurasia and in a large part of North America . Due to climate warming, the habitats of mammoths - the tundra-steppe - have declined. Mammoths migrated to the north of the mainland and for the last 9-10 thousand years lived on a narrow strip of land along the Arctic coast of Eurasia, which is now mostly flooded by the sea. The last mammoths lived on Wrangel Island, where they died out about 3,500 years ago. Mammoths are herbivorous, fed mainly on herbaceous plants (cereals, sedge, forbs), small bushes (dwarf birch, willow), tree shoots and moss. In winter, in order to feed themselves, they scooped up snow with their forelimbs and extremely developed upper incisor tusks, the length of which for large males was more than 4 meters, and they weighed about 100 kg. The mammoth's teeth were well suited for grinding coarse food. Each of the 4 teeth of a mammoth changed five times during its life. On a day, the mammoth usually ate 200-300 kg of vegetation, i.e. he had to eat 18-20 hours a day and move around all the time in search of new pastures.
The hunt of ancient people for a mammoth
Mammoth hunt
Ancient people were well adapted to the cold conditions of the ice age: they knew how to make fire, made tools, buried their deceased tribesmen. Thanks to mammoths, rulers of the northern circumpolar steppes and tundra, the ancient man survived in harsh conditions: they gave him food and clothing, a dwelling, sheltered from the cold. So, mammoth meat, subcutaneous and abdominal fat were used for nutrition; for clothes - hides, veins, wool; for the manufacture of dwellings, tools, hunting equipment and crafts - tusks and bones. Usually, only the most experienced hunters (4–5 people) went to hunt mammoths. The leader chose the victim (a pregnant female or a lone male), then spears darted into the right or left side of the mammoth. The pursuit of a wounded animal lasted 5 to 7 days. As the climate changes, mammoths moved further east and north. According to researchers, perhaps these animal migrations were the impetus for the advance of the first hunters to the north of Asia.
One of the hypotheses of the reasons for the disappearance of mammoths
To find out the reasons for the disappearance of representatives of the mammoth fauna, many different hypotheses were put forward, including cosmic radiation, infectious diseases, the global flood, natural disasters. Today, most scientists are inclined to believe that the main reason was the rapid warming of the climate at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene. About 10 thousand years ago, a kind of ecological catastrophe occurred on Earth: the climate began to “warm” quite suddenly, the retreat of glaciers and the reduction in the area occupied by permafrost began. In Yakutia, the severity of winter and the southern border of permafrost remained unchanged, although in general the climate and ice conditions were milder than modern ones. Researchers note that mammoths who are accustomed to living in a cold climate during the warming period may have disturbed their physiological metabolism, they have become less resistant to infectious diseases, which led to the degradation of their populations. So, organisms close to helminths were found in the soft tissues of the head of the Yukagir mammoth. There are known cases of bone and dental diseases (dental caries, tusks with abnormal painful forms). The onset of climate warming has also had a profound effect on precipitation and vegetation.
Mammoth. Siegsdorfer mammamm
More precipitation began to fall, sea level rose. The former Arctic steppe began to be replaced by the tundra, and in South and Central Yakutia - by the taiga. Neither the tundra nor the taiga could feed such large herbivores as mammoths. In winter, more snow began to fall, heavy snowfalls complicated the survival of mammoths. And in summer, the soil thawed and swamped. Animals accustomed to moving on a relatively hard surface could not exist in swampy areas. All this led to their mass death. They perished in snowdrifts, suffered from starfree, drowned in thermokarst traps - caves. Probably, the formation of the Berelekhsky mammoth cemetery in East Yakutia is connected with these factors, where, according to scientists, about 160 individuals died.
About the history of mammoth finds
The bone remains of mammoths on the territory of Yakutia, as well as throughout Russia, have long been found. The first information about such finds was reported by the Amsterdam burgomaster Witsen in 1692 in Notes on Traveling in North-East Siberia. Somewhat later, in 1704, Izbrant Edes wrote about Siberian mammoths, who, on the orders of Peter the Great, traveled across Siberia to China. In particular, he was the first to collect very interesting information that in Siberia local residents from time to time found whole carcasses of mammoths on the banks of rivers and lakes. In 1720, Peter the Great handed over to the Governor of Siberia A.M. Cherkassky oral decree on the search for the "intact skeleton" of the mammoth. The territory of Yakutia accounts for about 80% of all finds of mammoth remains in the world and other fossil animals with preserved soft tissues.
Mammoth Adams
Upon arriving at the site, he discovered the skeleton of a mammoth, eaten by wild animals and dogs. The skin was preserved on the head of the mammoth, one ear, dry eyes and brain also survived, and on the side on which it lay there was skin with thick long hair. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the zoologist, the skeleton was delivered to Petersburg in the same year. So, in 1808, for the first time in the world, a complete skeleton of a mammoth - the mammoth Adams was mounted. Currently, he, like the mammoth Dima, is exhibited in the museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.
Mammoth Adams in the mountains. St. Petersburg
Later, this wonderful find was called the “Adams mammoth”. One of the sensational finds that have gained worldwide fame was the carcass of the Berezovsky mammoth. His burial was discovered in 1900 on the bank of Berezovka (the right tributary of the Kolyma River) by hunter S. Tarabukin. The mammoth's head with skin was exposed in an earthen collapse, in places it was bitten by wolves. The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, having received news of a unique mammoth find in Yakutia, immediately equipped an expedition led by zoologist O.F. Hertz. As a result of excavations from frozen soils, an almost complete carcass of a mammoth was withdrawn in parts. The Berezovsky mammoth was of great scientific importance, because the almost complete carcass of a mammoth first fell into the hands of researchers. Judging by the presence of the remnants of undigested bundles of herbs found in the oral cavity, teeth, the estimated time of death of the mammoth is the end of summer. According to the research results of the Berezovsky mammoth, several volumes of scientific papers were published.
Berezovsky mammoth
In 1910, the remains of a mammoth corpse were discovered, discovered in 1906 by A. Gorokhov on the Eterikan River, on the island of Bol. Lyakhovsky. This mammoth has preserved an almost complete skeleton, fragments of soft tissues on the head and other parts of the body, as well as hair and the remains of the contents of the stomach. K.A. Vollosovich, who dug up the mammoth, sold it to Count A.V. Stenbock-Fermor, who, in turn, presented it to the Paris Museum of Natural History. Interest in the finds of mammoths and other fossil animals especially increased after the president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, academician V.L. Komarov in 1932 signed an appeal to the country's population “On the finds of fossil animals”. The appeal indicated that the Academy of Sciences for a valuable find would issue a cash reward of up to 1000 rubles.
Berelekhsky mammoth cemetery
In 1970, on the left bank of the Berelekh River, the left tributary of the Indigirka River (90 km northwest of the village of Chokurdakh of the Allaikhovsky ulus), a huge accumulation of bone remains was found that belonged to about 160 mammoths that lived 13 thousand years ago. Nearby was the home of ancient hunters. By the number and quality of preserved fragments of mammoth bodies, the Berelekhsky cemetery is the largest in the world. It testifies to the mass mortality of animals weakened and trapped in a snow drift.
Berelekhsky cemetery of mammoths. Yakutia
Currently, paleontological materials from the Berelekhsky cemetery are stored at the Institute of Geology of Diamond and Noble Metals of the SB RAS in the mountains. Yakutsk.
Shandrinsky mammoth
In 1971, D. Kuzmin on the right bank of the Shandrin River, which flows into the channel of the Indigirka River Delta, discovered the skeleton of a mammoth who lived 41 thousand years ago. Inside the skeleton was a frozen lump of viscera. In the gastrointestinal tract were found the remains of plants, consisting of herbs, branches, shrubs, seeds.
Shandrinsky mammoth. Yakutia
So, thanks to this, one of the five unique residues of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract of mammoths (cut size 70x35 cm), it was possible to find out the ration of the animal. The mammoth was a large male of 60 years old and apparently died of old age and physical exhaustion. The skeleton of the Shandrinsky mammoth is at the Institute of History and Philosophy of the SB RAS.
Mammoth Dima
At the excavation of a mammoth. Yakutia
In 1977, a well-preserved 7-8-month-old mammoth cub was discovered in the Kolyma river basin. Touching and sad was the sight for prospectors who discovered the mammoth Dima (as he was named after the key of the same name, in the decay of which he was found): he was lying on his side with mournfully extended legs, eyes closed and his trunk slightly crumpled.
Mammoth Dima
The find immediately became a world sensation due to the excellent preservation and the possible cause of the death of the mammoth. The poet Stepan Shchipachev composed a touching poem about a mammoth baby, who fell behind mother of a mammoth, and an animated film was shot about an unfortunate mammoth.
Yukagir mammoth
In 2002, near the Muksunuokha River, 30 km from the village of Yukagir, schoolchildren Innokenty and Grigory Gorokhov found the head of a male mammoth. In 2003 - 2004 the rest of the corpse was excavated.
The head of the Yukagir mammoth. Yakutsk
The head with tusks, with most of the skin, the left ear and the orbit, and the left front leg, consisting of the forearm and with muscles and tendons, are best preserved. Of the remaining parts, the cervical and thoracic vertebrae, part of the ribs, shoulder blades, right humerus, part of the insides, and wool were found.
The fate of the ideas about this northern elephant was curious. Mammoths - their lifestyle, habits - were well known within 70-10 millennia ago by our distant ancestors - the people of the Paleolithic. They hunted them and depicted in a flat drawing and in sculpture. Then, after the extinction of rhino-giants, the memory of them probably almost faded in a series of generations for many millennia. In any case, we do not know their images in the monuments of the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age. In ancient antiquity, and then in the Middle Ages and in our era, the notion of mammoths arose again, but in the form of fantastic retelling of Hyperborean legends and discussion of the facts of finds of their fossil remains.
Natives of Northern Siberia of the historical era, wandering along the rivers, observed the melting of shores of bones, tusks, and sometimes entire corpses of mammoths from frozen ground. Thus arose naive notions of a mammoth as a giant rat living underground, after which the earth sags with ditches and holes, and the animal itself dies as soon as it touches the air. Such a legend lasted until the XVIII century, and sometimes longer. Naturally, the Europeans' ideas about the mammoth were born on the basis of Siberian tales, works of fables and legends. The latter are probably best reflected in the state adviser of the Petrine era V.N. Tatishchev. His remarkable study, published in 1730, was recently reprinted in Kiev (Tatishchev, 1974).
Outlining legends, Tatishchev adhered to quite reasonable views on the fact of the habitation of hairy elephants in the north of Siberia. He resolutely rejected the opinion of the importation of these animals to the North by Alexander the Great and the introduction of corpses there by a global flood, and tried to explain their life in Siberia with a warmer climate.
Scientists have always been especially interested in the frozen corpses of mammoths. In the Pleistocene, in the presence of perennial (“eternal”) permafrost, such carcasses were also found in Europe, but when the soil was thawed, they decomposed. Obtaining information about the findings of corpses in Siberia, especially Yakutia, is hindered by the prejudice of local residents that the pioneer who talked to the mammoth should die in the first year. In addition, such information was simply lost and lost on the ground, and the exposed carcass is hiding in a landslide for the next season. In Taimyr, mammoth meat is considered the best bait for Arctic fox fishing. Feeding such meat and sled dogs. Therefore, reindeer herders and hunters prefer to dispose of the discovered carcass on their own, without hindering themselves by disseminating information, the use of which is very problematic.
One of the first literary reports about the frozen corpse of a mammoth on the river. Alasee was made by Vice Admiral G. A. Sarychev (1802, reprint: 1952, p. 88). October 1, 1787, while still a lieutenant commander and while in the Alazey village, he wrote:
“The Alazeya river, flowing near the village itself, flows into the Arctic Sea with its mouth. The local residents said that along this river down a mile and a half a hundred from the village from its sandy shore washed up to half the skeleton of a large animal, the size of an elephant, in a standing position, completely whole and covered with skin, in which long wool was visible in some places. Mr. Merck wanted to inspect him very much, but as it was far away from our path and, moreover, deep snow fell then, he could not enjoy his desire. "
Already E. Pfizenmayer (Pfizenmayer, 1926) enumerated in the 20s of our century 23 points of finds of the frozen corpses of mammoths and rhinos and their parts, starting with the mammoth Izbrand Ides (1707 on the Yenisei) and ending with the mammoth Volosovich on about. Kotelny in 1910. Of the rhinos of this number accounted for 4 finds. This information - 11 finds per century - has been repeatedly published and reprinted in special and popular reviews (Bialynitsky-Birulya, 1903; Pfizenmayer, 1926; Tolmachoff, 1929; Illarionov, 1940; Augusta, Burian, 1962, etc.). Here, only a map of the places of these finds is given, supplemented by the latest data (Fig. 2).
The most outstanding finds in the past were: the carcass of the old mammoth from the lower reaches of the Lena (Adam's mammoth, 1799), the carcass of an adult mammoth from the Berezovka river (Herz’s mammoth, 1901). Their skeletons and parts of carcasses are in the Museum of the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad.
Here is a brief description of the conditions for the occurrence of whole skeletons and carcasses of mammoths at the three newest locations.
In 1972, on the right bank of the Shandrin River, east of the mouth of the Indigirka, a fishing inspector discovered 12 cm diameter tusks protruding from a cliff and broke them out of the skull. The Yakut geologists B. Rusanov and P. Lazarev washed away a whole skeleton, densely stained with vivianite, with a fire engine. Under the protection of the ribs and pelvic bones, frozen internal organs, especially the intestines, have survived. The skeleton lay in river slanted silt clay loams with bark, wood chips, larch cones and ... lenses of fish eyes. The front legs stretched forward and the rear legs bent under the belly, stuffed with intestines, the venerable age of the beast (about 60-70 years) showed that he quietly died lying in the shallow channel of the river, and then the remains of his carcass and the skeleton cleared by fish and water were washed away silt and frozen about 41 thousand years ago.
In 1977, in a steep cliff of the left bank of the Bolshaya Lesnaya Rassokha River (the Khatanga River basin, East Taimyr), local reindeer herders found and sawed tusks protruding from the sand, 18-19 cm in diameter from the alveoli (!). After washing out the frozen river sands and pebbles of the coastal spring to a depth of 5.5 m, the expedition of the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences extracted in July 1978 a frozen head, left hind leg, a humerus and scapula bit by predators, cervical vertebrae, ribs. A fragment of pink tissue of the tongue and salivary gland was preserved under the lower jaw. A large section of the trunk with fresh pinkish cartilage and the right leg with muscles were extracted by the exploratory party of the Academy of Sciences back in 1977. Currents and waves of surf in the mainstream of the ancient stream dismembered the corpse and skeleton of this specimen about 40 thousand years ago. Later, the restructuring of the river network changed the local relief so much that the remains of the mammoth were at an altitude of 8 m above the low-water level of the river.
The conditions for preserving the carcass of the Magadan mammoth discovered by prospectors in the summer of 1977 near the town of Susuman turned out to be completely unique according to the results. This cub died from exhaustion about 40 thousand years ago. Having weakened, the mammoth fell into the pond of a brook on the gentle right slope of the taiga decay of Kirgyly in the upper river. Kolyma. Unable to raise his head, he swallowed silty sediments and calmed down, lying on his left side. Post-mortem peristalsis expelled silt from the stomach into the large intestine. It happened at the end of summer. In a cold slush, at the crossing of veins of ground ice, the carcass survived to frost and soon froze. The following summer, a frozen puddle with a mammoth was blocked by a new removal of gravel and silt, which formed a reliable permafrost shield. To our days, the carcass was already at a depth of two meters under frozen silt and rubble, layered in places with brown peat. By the care of the bulldozer A. Logachev, the mummified carcass of a mammoth, with bare hair, was saved for science.
It is interesting that, despite the colossally increased volume of exploration and industrial work in the North, the appearance of helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, motorboats, the media, the rate of finds of frozen carcasses of mammoths and other animals in the XX century increased compared to the XIX century. only doubled. This is partly due to the high pay to pioneers in the last century for finding a whole carcass (up to 500 and even up to 1000 rubles). In addition, in the first forty years of Soviet power, it was obviously not up to the mammoths. The most important finds of the last decade are an extensive collection of bones (8300 specimens) from the Berelekh cemetery (1970); skeleton and skin of the Terektyakhsky mammoth (1977); the skeleton and intestines of the Shandrinsky mammoth (1972); carcass of the Magadan mammoth (1977); a head in the skin and parts of the skeleton of the Khatanga mammoth (1977-1978).
The appearance of the mammoth is now known from the drawings and sculptures of the Stone Age masters, as well as from frozen corpses (Fig. 3). The hairy giant was impressive - its height at the withers reached 3.5 m, weight - up to 6 tons. A large head with a hairy trunk, huge tusks bent up and inward, with small ears overgrown with thick hair sat on a short neck. With long spinous processes of the thoracic vertebrae, the withers markedly protruded. Judging by the mounted skeletons, the back was lowered less than what artists usually depict. The columnar legs were each equipped with three rounded horn plates - nails on the front surface of the hoofed phalanges. The thick, rough sole of the legs was as hard as a horn. Its diameter in adult animals reached 35-50 cm, in a one-year-old mammoth 13-15 cm. The tail was short, thickly covered with coarse hair. Mammoths were warmly dressed, especially in winter. From the shoulder blades, sides, thighs, and belly, rigid outer hair of the suspension — a kind of “skirt” of a meter length or more — hung almost to the ground. A warm undercoat, up to 15 cm long, was hidden under the covering hairs of the spine. The thickness of the outer hair reached 230–240 µm, and the undercoat was 17–40 µm, i.e. it was 3–4 times thicker than merino wool. The yellowish hair of the undercoat was hollowly curled along its entire length, which increased its heat-insulating properties. However, both the outer and down hairs of mammoths were devoid of the axial canal and core cells. Judging by the partially faded hair collected in different places from the ground and from the skin, the main color tone was yellowish-brown and light brown. At the withers and tail, as well as in places on the upper part of the legs, black hair braids predominated (Fig. 4). The stiff black hair on his forehead grew obliquely forward. Mammoths were also born shaggy. In the 7-8-month-old Magadan mammoth from the upper Kolyma, the hair on the legs reached 12-14 cm in length, on the trunk - up to 5-6 cm, and on the sides - 20-22 cm.
The skull of a mammoth, like other elephants, is very different from the skulls of other terrestrial animals. The long, thin-walled tubes of the maxillary and intermaxillary bones held heavy tusks. The nasal opening was high on the forehead between the eyes, almost like a whale. A small brain capsule was located deep beneath a thick (up to 30-35 cm) layer of the frontal sinuses - cells separated by thin bone walls (Fig. 5). Upper molars sat in thin-walled alveoli. The lower jaw was more massive.
The hardest part of the mammoth skull is the dental apparatus, especially the tusks. Mammoth tusks basically created fame for him. Many people think that these are overdeveloped fangs and are often called so in the literature. In fact, tusks are the middle pair of incisors, and the fangs of elephants do not develop at all in the upper or lower jaw. Tiny, 3-4 cm long, milk tusks were already present in the newborn mammoth, and they were crowded out at the age of one constant. The adult mammoth tusk is a series of dentin cones, as if strung on each other. There was no enamel on the tusk, and therefore its surface did not differ in hardness. It was easily scratched and grinded off at work. Tusks grew in length and thickness throughout the life of the beast. The size of the tusks varies greatly. The author found and knocked out a tusk of 380 cm in length, 18 cm in diameter and 85 kg in weight from the permafrost at the Laptev Strait. Two huge tusks in the exposition of the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad from the Kolyma River have the following dimensions: right - length 396 cm, diameter of the alveoli 19 cm, weight 74.8 kg; left - respectively 420 cm, 19 cm and 83.2 kg. The largest tusks of males reach a length of 400-450 cm, with a diameter at the exit of the alveoli of 18-19 cm.The weight of such a tusk reaches 100-110 kg, but, apparently, were heavier - up to 120 kg.
Tusks of African elephants usually do not reach this size. The largest tusks, now stored in the British Museum in London, belong to the elephant killed by Kilimanjaro in Kenya in 1897. They weigh 101.7 and 96.3 kg each. The "monarch" of the African jungle elephant Ahmed in Kenya, who died at the age of 60-67, tusks reached a length of 330 cm and a weight of 65-75 kg each. The tusks of Indian elephants are significantly inferior in size to African ones. The difference in the work of tusks between African elephants and mammoths is also clearly visible. The ends of the tusks of the Africans grind evenly, forming a rather steep pointed cone. This type of erasing a tusk in mammoths has not been encountered. Sometimes mammoths developed second, thin tusks. They either sat in the jaw independently or fused along the entire length with the main ones. Diseases of tusks also happened when they grew up in the form of ugly warty formations. Such tusks are found on the Novosibirsk islands.
The mammoth tusks were always weaker, thinner, straighter. In an 18-20-year-old female from Berelekh, they reached a length of 120 cm and a diameter of 60 mm in the alveoli. As a rule, they did not twist as much as they did in males, but their ends were also noticeably erased from the outside.
There are a lot of organics in tusks - protein, and, burning, they give black coal. It is believed that during life, mammoths grew and wore out, like modern elephants, with six molars in each half of the jaw.
The first three teeth are considered to be pre-radical milk and designate Pd 2/2; Pd 3/3; Pd 4/4 . The last three are denoted by M 1/1; M 2/2; M 3/3 and are actually indigenous. Prior to the loss of the remainder of the fifth tooth (M2 / 2) and the full work of the sixth M 3/3, two teeth were present and erased at once in each half of the jaw: Pd 2/2 + Pd 3/3; Pd 3/3 + Pd 4/4; Pd 4/4 + M 1/1; M 1/1 + M2 / 2; M 2/2 + M 3/3.
A 7–8-month-old, heavily emaciated Magadan male mammoth, weighing 80–90 kg, had uncut milk tusks, supported constantly, heavily erased second Pd 2/2 and middle erased third Pd 3/3 milk indigenous. The fourth (Pd4 / 4) were already formed, but still sat deep in the jaws (Fig. 6).
Mammoth molars consisted of a series of flat thin-walled enamel pockets surrounded and brazed by a mass of dentin. The last - sixth - teeth, with the final erasure of which the mammoths died, the number of pockets, as if folded into an accordion, reached 28, and the thickness of the enamel walls - 2.2 mm, rarely more. The usual tooth enamel thickness of the Late Pleistocene mammoths was only 1.2-1.5 mm.
Possessing great strength, the molars of elephants remained even after the complete destruction of the shards and skeletons. They are usually found by geologists in lake, river, slope and even in marine sediments.
To hold several tons of skin, muscles and internal organs, the mammoth needed a strong skeleton. In total, the skeleton of the mammoth has about 250 separate bones, including 7 cervical, 20 breast, 5 lumbar. 5 sacral and 18-21 caudal vertebrae. There were 19–20 pairs of hollow bent, moderately wide ribs (Fig. 7).
The bones of the mammoth limbs are massive and heavy. A huge mass of muscles was attached to the wide shoulder blades and pelvic bones. The most severe and thick-walled were the humerus and femur, weighing 15-20 kg each in an adult beast. Short bones of the hand and foot resemble heavy chunks. The internal organs of mammoths are still poorly understood. A severely deformed corpse of the Magadan mammoth revealed a small tongue of 19X4.5 cm, a simple and empty stomach, a thin section of the intestine that fell down about 315 cm long and was stuffed with thick earth about 132 cm long. The lungs, weighing 520 g, looked like triangular sheets along the upper edge 34 cm and a front height of 23 cm. A heart weighing 405 g with a pericardial sac and 375 g without it is in the form of a collapsed sac 21 cm long and atria 16 cm wide. Liver - weighing 415 g, whole, without lobes, size - 19X14 cm. Kidneys, weight 40 g, looked like flat elongated metal plates 22 × 4 cm at a thickness of 1.7 cm. A testicle measuring 20X35 mm was found under the left kidney. The penis with cavernous bodies 30 cm long and 35 mm in diameter had a smooth oval head, pulled into a prepuce bag.
The lifestyle and living conditions of mammoths were still little known. Animal painters and zoologists usually depict mammoths in the landscape of the tundra, forest-tundra, among the ice and swamps. In museums, such paintings present mammoths, bison and horses grazing on marshy plains bordered by vertical walls of ice, and sometimes directly on glaciers with their cracks, boulders, etc. Such vulgarization of glacial ideas brings little cognitive benefit.
Huge herbivorous animals demanded daily three to four centners of loose fodder. It was possible to get it in the summer only in river valleys, along the outskirts of lakes and swamps - in the thickets of reeds, reeds and grassy grasses, among the curtains of river talnik. Mammoths lived and grazed in such places. They had no place in the mossy tundra and in the dry steppe of modern types, as well as in the dark coniferous taiga. It is very likely that far to the north, beyond the Arctic Circle, mammoths left the cold, but rich in grassy Pleistocene tundra steppe steppes only in the summer; in winter, they wandered along the valleys to the south, as modern reindeers in Siberia and Canada do. In winter, they probably fed, like elks, shoots of pine, larch, willow and shrub alder, forming an impenetrable jungle in the floodplains of northern rivers. In floods, mammoths were forced out to the watersheds and fed along the fringes of forests, in meadows and in grass steppes along young grass.
The attraction to the floodplains of the rivers was fraught with great danger during floods and freezing. The main death of mammoths occurred precisely in floodplains, during crossings on fragile ice of rivers and lakes, and during flash floods, when animals tried to escape on islands. Mammoths lived in the mountainous regions along the wide intermountain valleys and plateaus of the Caucasus, Crimea, the Urals, Siberia, and Alaska. In the deserts of Central Asia, mammoths entered only along river valleys. It was dry and lightly fed here. The modern landscape of Central Asia is unsuitable even for Indian elephants. In this connection, the “experiment” of Genghis Khan after the capture of Samarkand, noted by the chronicler Rashid Ad-Din (1952, p. 207), is interesting.
“The leaders of the elephants (the Khorezm Shah in Samarkand had 20 fighting elephants, - N.V.)they brought elephants to Genghis Khan and asked him for food for them, he ordered them to go into the steppe so that they themselves would find food and eat there. The elephants were untied, and they wandered until they died of starvation. "
The nutrition and feeding regime of mammoths is known for the contents of the stomachs and intestines of two adult animals that died in the summer. According to the research of V.N.Sukachev, small cereals and sedges, with mature seeds, as well as shoots of green mosses, were found in the stomach of the Berezovsky mammoth (the Kolyma basin), apparently, the animal died in late summer.
The fodder mass of the stomach and intestines of the Shandrinsky mammoth (east of the lower Indigirka) weighed in ice cream, and, therefore, dried, over 250 kg. The mass of this monolith consisted of 90% of the stems and leaves of sedges, cotton grass and cereals. A smaller part was made up of thin shoots of shrubs - especially willow, birch, alder. Lingonberry leaves and plentiful shoots of hypnum and sphagnum mosses also came across. No mature seeds were found, the animal died probably in the beginning of summer - June, July.
In the Magadan mammoth, the thick intestine was clogged with 90% dark earthy mass. The remains of herbaceous plants accounted for about 8-10% of the content. In the stomach of the Shandrinsky mammoth, larvae of gadflies of a special species from the genus were found Cobboldia, characteristic of modern elephants.
The predominant herbivore of mammoths is also indicated by the fine-emotion of their teeth.
Mammoths from one and a half to two years of age used their 5-6-centimeter tusks, working with lateral movements of the head, so the grinding of the ends of the tusks occurred on the side, the outside. From these erasure zones it is easy to determine whether the tusk belongs to the right or left side. With age, the ends of the tusks bent upward and inward “heteronymously,” that is, the left twisted to the right, the right to the left. Therefore, the zone of erasure of the end of the tusk, formed in youth, moved partly to old age on the upper - frontal surface. The wear of the ends of the tusks indicates their energetic use for obtaining some food, but what !? Tusks 5-6 cm long, young animals could not pick the soil in search of rhizomes, because for this they would have to lie on their sides or graze on very steep slopes. Such small tusks were probably used in the summer to peel the bark of trees. willows, aspens, possibly even larch and spruce.
On the strongly bent, huge tusks of old males there are also traced “erasure zones”, 30-40 cm long or more. The main part of such attrition due to the bending of the tusks was now inside and on top. It was already impossible to dig, pierce, or tear off the bark with the tusks bent up and inward. They could only break the branches of shrubs and trees.
Almost nothing is known about the breeding of mammoths, and you have to go by the method of analogies.
Mature and first mating in African and Indian elephants occurs at the 11-15th year of life (Sikes, 1971; Nasimovich, 1975). Pregnancy lasts exceptionally long - 660 days, i.e. almost 22 months. Most mating occurs in May, June. Usually one elephant calf is born, and twins make up from 1 to 3.8%. Elephant calf is fed up to 1.5 years. The interval between the two births varies for African elephants from 3 to 13 years. Elephants aged 1-2 years in the herd of African elephants are from 7 to 10%. The sex ratio is usually 1: 1. At the age of one year, the African elephant calf has growth at the withers about a meter, the Magadan mammoth cub has a height at the withers of 104 cm, with an oblique body length of 74 cm (Fig. 8).
It used to be that elephants lived very long - more than a hundred years. It has now become clear that 80-85 years is the extreme limit to which Indian elephants live in nature and zoos. The life limit of African elephants is less - about 70 years.
It was not so with mammoths, but the severity of the conditions of their homeland should have left its mark on the mating seasonality and gestational age. According to our research (Mammoth fauna ..., 1977), in the herd of Berelekh mammoths, young people, aged 1-5 years old, killed about 15% of all individuals. Approximately the same ratio was noticed by Ukrainian scientists and the remains of mammoths in the Desninsky Paleolithic sites.
Polyarnik V. M. Sdobnikov (1956, p. 166) wrote that mammoth bones in the Taimyr tundra come across more often than bones of a hairy rhino, horse, reindeer, elk, bison, and musk ox. As if the frozen corpses of these mammoth companions were not found at all. He attributed this to the great number of mammoths. It was actually different. Large bones are more noticeable and less lost in the breed. Findings of the corpses of horses and bison are now known, and the corpses of rhinos were also found in the time of Pallas. Small frozen carcasses without tusks paid less attention.
The geographical distribution of mammoths was extensive. They inhabited at different times the Pleistocene all of Europe, the Caucasus, the northern half of Asia, Alaska and the southern half of North America, not subjected to glaciation. Their teeth are found even in the modern shelf area - on the banks of the North Sea and in the Atlantic against New York.
A bit about the "mammoth bone." Talking about the mammoth, you can not keep silent about the history of the use of mammoth tusks. Already in the Middle Ages, the mysterious light cream bone that came from Muscovy to Western Europe was interested in trading and learned people, especially bone-cutters and jewelers. The material was perfectly machined by the cutter, differed by a beautiful mesh pattern and was suitable for the manufacture of expensive snuffboxes, figurines, chess pieces, combs, bracelets, necklaces, inlays of caskets, sheaths and handles of blades and sabers, reeds, etc. In general, “Mammoths” bone ”was not inferior to the more expensive ivory imported from India and Africa. For jewelers, it was obvious that it also belonged to elephants. But what kind of elephants could live in Muscovy and Siberia - the country of eternal frosts and snows? Here even bright minds began to get confused, express and build fantastic guesses and hypotheses.
And nowadays, as soon as it comes to finding a mammoth, usually the interlocutor immediately asks stereotypical questions: "And the tusks?", "Large?", "Whole?", "How and where can I get at least a piece?" ... Mammoth tusk - This is an original souvenir, and a rare material for jewelry. Moreover, it turned out that even now, in the presence of polymers, Mammoth Bone has occupied a special place in electronics. It is almost indispensable in radio relay devices as an excellent elastic dielectric that is not amenable to deformation.
In the tundra and taiga of Siberia, mammoth tusks are held in high esteem. Their main application in the Evenks, Yakuts, Yukagirs, Chukchi, Eskimos is the manufacture of knife handles and parts of reindeer harnesses. Participants in geological, geophysical, topographical and other expeditions will also not miss the opportunity to purchase or search for a mammoth tusk personally. And it often happens that, having found and dug up a tusk weighing 50-60 kg, its owner throws it away, since it is very difficult to carry cargo along the hummock tundra, and transportation by air does not justify the cost. A mass of invaluable finds for science and museums disappeared and disappears as a result of miserable and selfish aspirations! Indeed, behind the tip of a tusk sticking out of the permafrost there is a skull, and sometimes a whole corpse of an outlandish beast. So it was with the Adams mammoth in the Lena Delta in 1802, with Berezovsky in 1901, with Shandrinsky in 1972, with Khatangsky in 1977.
If nowadays you can practically do without a mammoth bone, then in the late Stone Age things were different. From the mammoth tusks in the Paleolithic, spearheads up to a meter long, and even solid asegai of two meter length, were made. Such asegai were discovered by Professor O.N. Bader in the burial place of two boys in the Paleolithic site of Sungir near Vladimir.
The manufacture of tips, and even more so of whole asegais, was a serious matter. Probably, the tusks of the females were taken, as more straight, with a diameter of 70-80 mm. They were soaked for a long time in water, and then they were longitudinally crosswise incised on four sides with flint blades. It was hardly possible to make such longitudinal grooves-cuts deeper than 8-10 mm, and therefore the tusk was wedged into four longitudinal segments and after that it was processed by blows of flint knives to a round section. The method of straightening such a tip is still not clear, but on the example of a finished rod with a diameter of 25 mm and a length of 94 cm from the Berelekh site, it was estimated that at least 3,500 flint knife blows were spent on its final processing. There is reason to believe that heavy spears with such tips were used specifically for hunting pachyderms.
Judging by the inventory from the Kostenkov-Borshevsky Paleolithic sites on the Don and sites Eliseevichi, Berdyzh, Mezin, Kirillovskaya, Mezhirich and others on the Desna and Dnieper, vanes of unknown purpose, awls and needles, bracelets, figurines depicting Mammoths also stood out from tusks lions, overweight women and other items. It is possible that as a result of the manufacture of bracelets from mammoth tusk plates, a swastika sign appeared in such an extreme antiquity, which appears on sections of the mesh structure of layers during polishing and stacking of plates in a special order.
Fishing - tracing and exporting - tusks existed long before the first Russian Arctic explorers. Mammoth tusks and walrus fangs initially went to Mongolia and China. Already in 1685, the Smolensk governor Musin-Pushkin, being the government quartermaster in Siberia, knew that there were islands in the mouth of the Lena where the population preys on a “hippopotamus” - an amphibian beast (apparently walrus), whose teeth are in great demand. At the end of the 18th century, tusks were already collected and taken on deer and dogs by the Cossacks Vagin and Lyakhov on deer and dogs. In 1809, the Cossack Sannikov removed 250 pounds of tusks from the Novosibirsk Islands, from about 80-100 animals. In the first half of the XIX century. from Yakut fairs passed from 1000 to 2000 pounds of mammoth bone, up to 100 pounds through Turukhansk and the same through Obdorsk. Academician Middendorff believed that then, tusks from about 100 mammoths were mastered annually. Thus, in 200 years this will amount to 20,000 goals. Various authors tried to calculate in more detail the amount of bone removed from Siberia. Unfortunately, this statistic is conditional. I.P. Tolmachev (1929) cited some data on the export of mammoth tusks to England. In 1872, 1630 excellent tusks came from Russia, and in 1873 - 1140, each weighing 35-40 kg. In the second half of the XIX century. and at the beginning of the XX century. According to the then statistics, up to 1,500 pounds of bone passed through Yakutsk. If we assume that the average weight of the tusk was 3 pounds (i.e. 48 kg - a figure clearly exaggerated, - N.V.),it can be calculated that the number of mammoth specimens discovered in Siberia (not necessarily whole skeletons and carcasses) over the course of 250 years was 46,750. This was also indicated by V. M. Zenzinov (1915), citing a large table of bone extraction by years in the past and our century. Similar calculations and numbers usually migrated from article to article of later compilers.
At the beginning of the XX century. mammoth bone purchases at Yakut fairs were made annually in the amount of 40 to 90 thousand rubles.
In Soviet times, the organized collection of mammoth bone almost stopped. True, she occasionally came from reindeer herders and hunters in the Soyuzpushniny trading post, to the bases and stations of the Glavsevmorputi, and the procurement offices of Integral Cooperation. In the Yamalo-Nenets National District of the Tyumen Region in the 20-50s, bone harvests reached only 30-40 kg per year. It is known that from October 1, 1922 to October 1, 1923, the Yakut consumer union “Holbos” procured 56 pounds of 26.5 pounds of mammoth bone worth 2540 rubles 61 kopecks (“Holbos 50 years”, 1969). The latest figures have not been preserved, until 1960, when "Holbos" harvested 707.5 kg; in 1966 this organization procured 471 kg, in 1967 - 27.3 kg, in 1968 - 312 kg, in 1969 - 126 kg and in 1971 - 65 kg. In the 70s, procurement continued more intensively in connection with the revival of the bone-cutting craft and the establishment of the procurement price (4 p. 50 kopecks per 1 kg of tusk), as well as with the requests of the aviation industry. A significant number of tusks are now exported by participants in various expeditions, employees of polar stations, and tourists.
Searches for tusks were carried out and are being carried out mainly along the eroded shores of seas, rivers, lakes, i.e., in areas of water erosion and thawing of ground ice - the so-called thermokarst. The most interesting have always been the marginal sections of gentle hills - food, with their large landslides and ice layers melting out of thin air. Such hills are nothing more than the remains of the former ice-loess plain, on which mammoths, rhinos, horses, bisons were grazed, died and in some places were buried. Tusks washed from the original frozen ground by a river, sea, lake, and redeposited at their bottom, deteriorate and collapse.
Such valuable raw materials, thawed annually and re-deposited for millennia, should be collected and disposed of as fully as possible by means of truthfully organized searches. Along the way, you can expect to find whole carcasses. For this, large-scale aerial survey maps should be used, highlighting promising areas of biggers and erosion of relict hills.
The author of this book tried to determine the total reserves of tusks in Siberia and the number of dead mammoths based on field observations. The frequency of tusks finds was calculated from the cliffs of the “mammoth graves” - on relict ice-loess remnants of the Yano-Kolymskaya - Primorsky lowland, namely in the upper layer of the cover loess. And in particular, the calculations were carried out on the southern coast of the Laptev Strait - Oyagos Yar and for the food of the river. Allahi. According to these data, it turned out that about 550 thousand tons of tusks were washed and reburied on the shelf as a result of erosion of ancient land on the bottom of the Laptev and East Siberian seas. In the limits of the surviving Primorsky Lowland, between Yana and Kolyma, there are about 150 thousand more tusks left that may be found. If we assume that the average weight of one tusk is 25-30 kg (i.e., 50-60 kg per animal), then the total number of male mammoths that lived and died in the late Pleistocene - Sartan on the plains of northeast Siberia, can be estimate at about 14 million individuals. Considering that the same number of adult females lived here, whose tusks were not collected, we get the total number of adult individuals of 28-30 million, plus about 10 million young animals of different ages. Taking the duration of the late stretch of the last ice age of 10 millennia, we can assume that within one year about 4,000 mammoths lived in the extreme northeast of Siberia - a figure probably understated by 10-15 times, since when searching for tusks in abrasive and landslide outcrops revealed no more than 3-5% of the actual presence of tusks.
Mammoth ancestors. The origin of the species has been little studied. The hairy elephant, enduring the ferocious cold and snowstorms, was not born suddenly, not as a result of supermutation. The living African and Indian elephants are inhabitants of the tropics, although they sometimes rise to Kilimanjaro and the Himalayas to the snow line. In terms of the exterior, the structure of the skull and teeth, and the composition of the blood, the mammoth is closer to the Indian elephant than to the African one. The distant ancestors of mammoths - primitive elephants and mastodons - also lived in a warm climate and were poorly dressed, almost hairless.
Among the fossil elephants by the structure of their teeth, skull and skeleton, the closest to the mammoth is the huge trogonterium elephant, who lived in Europe and Asia about 450-350 thousand years ago. The climate of that era - the Early Pleistocene - was still moderately warm in the middle latitudes, and moderate in the high latitudes. In the extreme northeast of Asia and Alaska, mixed deciduous forests grew and meadow-steppes and tundra-steppes were located. Probably, this elephant already had the rudiments of the hairline. His last - sixth - teeth had up to 26 enamel pockets, and the thickness of their enamel reached 2.4-2.9 mm. Finds of isolated teeth, bones, and sometimes even whole skeletons of this elephant are known in the vast territory of Europe and Asia. It is assumed that the ancestor of the trogonterium elephant was the southern elephant, probably almost hairless; it reached 4 m in height at the withers, the sixth teeth of this elephant had up to 16 pockets, the enamel thickness reached 3.0-3.8 mm. His skeletons and teeth are found in layers of the Late Pliocene - Eopleistocene. The ancestors of the southern elephant in our borders has not yet been found.
The most frequent finds of the remains of the southern elephant in Ukraine, in the Ciscaucasia, Asia Minor. In the museums of Leningrad, Rostov, Stavropol, there are even his whole skeletons.
Since the work of G.F. Osborne (1936, 1942), the hypothesis has been accepted that the mammoth represents the last stage in the genetic line: the southern elephant, the trogonterium elephant, and the mammoth. To some extent, this was confirmed by the consistent dating of geological layers, with their remains of elephants, according to other geomorphological features. However, in recent decades, finely enamelled mammoth teeth were found in Northeast Siberia in the layers of the Early Pleistocene. In this regard, the mammoth should probably be considered a descendant of a special line of cold-hardy elephants that lived in the northeast of Siberia and Beringia, and then widely settled in the last ice age.
It is still believed that mammoths became extinct at the end of the last ice age or at the beginning of the Holocene. According to the archaeological scale, this is Mesolithic bad. The latest absolute dates of mammoth bones for radioactive carbon are as follows: the Berelekhsky “cemetery” is 12,300 years old, the Taimyr mammoth is 11,500 years old, the Kunda site in Estonia is 9,500 years old, the Kostenkovsky sites are 9,500-14,000 years old. The reasons for the death and extinction of mammoths always caused a lively discussion (see Ch. V), however, it could never be complete without considering the living conditions of other members of the mammoth fauna, some of which also became extinct. One of these contemporaries of the mammoth was a hairy rhino.
It is believed that the word "mammoth" came from the phrase "mang ont", which is translated from Mansi means "earthen horn." Then it went into other languages \u200b\u200bof the world, including English. These huge animals lived in the Pleistocene era. They inhabited the territory of Europe, North Asia and North America. Many researchers and archaeologists are still concerned about the mystery: how did these animals disappear from the face of the earth?
Finds in Russia
Mammoth is an extinct animal species. He is one of the closest relatives of the elephant. Scientists are still arguing about when mammoths became extinct. At the excavations of the sites of an ancient man that belong to the Stone Age, drawings of these animals were found. In the Voronezh region, archaeologists have discovered mammoth bones. Of these, ancient man built his home. There is an assumption that they were also used as fuel.
In Siberia and Alaska, researchers found the bodies of mammoths, which survived thanks to permafrost. In Oleg Kuvaev’s book entitled “Territory”, you can even read the story of how one of the archaeologists knitted a sweater from the wool of an ancient animal. Scientists find the remains of mammoth bones in the most unexpected places. Teeth and bones are often found in the suburbs and even on the territory of the capital.
Appearance of animals
Mammoths were no larger than a modern elephant. However, their torso was more massive, and their limbs were shorter. The mammoth hair was long, and at the top of the jaw they had menacing tusks up to 4 meters long. In winter, using these tusks, like a bulldozer, animals raked snow. Some subspecies of mammoths reached an unprecedented weight - as much as 10.5 tons.
Inhabitants of Wrangel Island
There are many theories about when mammoths became extinct. One of them belongs to the candidate of geological sciences Sergey Vartanyan. In 1993, on the territory of Wrangel Island, he discovered the remains of the so-called dwarf mammoths. Their growth did not exceed 1.8 m. Researchers, using radiocarbon analysis, came to the conclusion that mammoths could live here 3.7 thousand years ago.
Prior to this discovery, scientists believed that the last mammoths could live in Taimyr about 10 thousand years ago. The scientist’s find showed that these animals lived on Wrangel Island simultaneously with the heyday of the Minoan culture on the territory of about. Crete, a Sumerian civilization, as well as the 11th Pharaonic Dynasty in Egypt.
Key Assumptions
Currently, there are two main hypotheses that explain why mammoths became extinct. According to the first, this was due to worsening climatic conditions. Proponents of another hypothesis believe that the main reason was human activity - hunting. In the era of the Upper Paleolithic people already settled throughout the Earth. It was at this time that these huge animals were exterminated.
The main hypothesis
Studies show that mammoths began to die out as a species for a long time - about 120 thousand years ago. The final disappearance occurred at the boundary between the two ice ages. Gradually, the population decreased from several million to tens of thousands. During the ice age, it was so cold on Earth that the grass that these animals fed on became a rarity. The meadows in the north gradually began to turn into forests and tundra. The result of the extinction of this species was just cooling due to the beginning of the ice age.
Epidemic hypothesis
The mammoth is an extinct animal, but because of what this species has disappeared from the face of the Earth, it is very difficult to say. There is another theory: American scientists Preston Max and Ross McPhee hypothesized that the cause could be an epidemic. The people who then shared the territory with mammoths were able to adapt and survive. And it was more difficult for animals to develop immunity due to their enormous size and slowness. When mammoths became infected, they went to the ponds and died there. Scientists have noticed that the largest number of burials of these animals is located just on the banks of rivers and lakes.
However, some finds by archaeologists do not support this hypothesis: scientists often find undigested food in the stomachs of animals, and the remains of grass in their mouths. Apparently, the moment when the mammoths became extinct, happened quite suddenly.
Space invasion
There is another suggestion as to why mammoths became extinct when. It is believed that they could be destroyed by a huge comet that collided with the Earth 13 thousand years ago. Because of this comet, the researchers say, people were forced to farm. Collision data was discovered by archaeologists in southern Turkey. The comet destroyed not only mammoths, but also other types of animals. It was because of this that people had to give up hunting and gathering and switch to agricultural labor.
Incest Disappearance
There is another theory according to which the last mammoths remaining on about. Wrangel died out due to imbreeding. This term refers to closely related crosses, resulting in various deformities and genetic anomalies. Thus, the extinction of these animals was due to a reduction in genetic diversity. On the territory of. Wrangel lived about 500-1000 individuals - at least, scientists give such estimates. And 500 individuals - this is the minimum amount that is necessary for the survival of any species of endangered animals.
The approximate time when mammoths became extinct, or rather the last of their representatives, was about 4 millennia ago. However, shortly before the death of this population, another small group of animals fought for survival in the modern territory of St. Paul’s Island. It is located between the coast of Alaska and the Far East.
Why did mammoths die out?
In the 3rd grade, students study this topic. Children need to clearly explain the reasons for the disappearance of these animals. Therefore, we can recommend that students and their parents use the main two hypotheses about the disappearance of these ancient animals. However, in addition to two assumptions that the mammoths were destroyed by hunters and that they could disappear from the face of the Earth due to worsening climatic conditions, other theories can be highlighted in homework. For example, extinction due to collision with a comet or due to inbreeding.
Arguments Against Hypotheses
Many archaeologists do not agree with the hypothesis of the disappearance of these animals due to hunting for them. For example, about 13 thousand years ago, an ancient man already mastered the entire space of Siberia. However, the time when the last mammoths died out on this territory is about 10 thousand years ago. Researchers note that hunting animals of this size was dangerous and inappropriate. In addition, the installation of traps in frozen ground probably took a lot of time and effort, especially when you consider that it was carried out using fairly primitive tools.
However, other animals disappeared from the planet at the time when the mammoths became extinct. The history of the world has data that in the same era the wild horses that lived in the vastness of America also disappeared. Researchers have a logical question: if mammoths became extinct, why did their contemporaries survive: bison, caribou, musk ox?
In addition, the wild horse, the tarpan, which was exterminated only in the second half of the 19th century, survived. Despite the abundance of hypotheses, it is believed that the theory of the impact of the ice age is still the most justified. A study by American scientist Dale Garty confirms the climate hypothesis. The scientist came to the conclusion about its reliability, having studied hundreds of remains of mammoths and people. Mammoths easily tolerated severe frost, but when it got warmer, the snow froze on their long hair, and this was a real disaster. The wool became an ice shell, which did not protect the animal from the cold.
Bone disease
Another assumption was made by scientists who conducted a study of the remains of animals found in the Kemerovo region. Archaeologists believe that mammoths here could disappear due to bone disease - a decrease in calcium levels occurred in local waters. Animals tried to find salt licks to make up for this shortcoming, but this did not help them escape. Weakened mammoths were watched by an ancient man. Each of the hypotheses has a right to exist - because if none of the assumptions can be proved, then they cannot be refuted.
The mammoth fauna consisted of about 80 species of mammals, which, thanks to a number of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral adaptations, were able to adapt to the habitat in the cold continental climate of periglacial forest-steppe and tundra-steppe regions with their permafrost, severe snowy winters and powerful summer insolation. At about the turn of the Holocene, about 11 thousand years ago, due to the sharp warming and humidification of the climate, which led to the defrosting of the tundra steppes and other radical changes in the landscape, the mammoth fauna decays. Some species, such as the mammoth itself, woolly rhino, giant deer, cave lion and others, have disappeared from the face of the earth. A number of large species of callopods and ungulates - wild camels, horses, yaks, saiga survived in the steppes of Central Asia, some others adapted to life in completely different natural zones (bison, kulans); many, such as reindeer, musk ox, arctic fox, wolverine, white hare and others, were crowded far north and sharply reduced their area of \u200b\u200bdistribution. The reasons for the extinction of the mammoth fauna are not fully known. Over the long history of its existence, it experienced already warm interglacial periods, and was then able to survive. Obviously, the last warming caused a more significant restructuring of the natural environment, and maybe the species themselves have exhausted their evolutionary capabilities.
Mammoths, woolly (Mammuthus primigenius) and Colombian (Mammuthus columbi), lived in the Pleistocene – Holocene in a vast territory: from Southern and Central Europe to Chukotka, Northern China and Japan (Hokkaido Island), as well as in North America. The lifetime of the Colombian mammoth 250 - 10, woolly 300 - 4 thousand years ago (some researchers attribute to the genus Mammuthus also the southern (2,300 - 700 thousand years) and trogonterium (750 - 135 thousand years) elephants). Contrary to popular belief, mammoths were not the ancestors of modern elephants: they appeared on earth later and became extinct, without even leaving distant descendants. Mammoths roamed in small herds, adhering to river valleys and eating grass, tree branches and bushes. Such herds were very mobile - it was not easy to collect the required amount of food in the tundra steppe. The size of the mammoths was quite impressive: large males could reach a height of 3.5 meters, and their tusks were up to 4 m long and weighed about 100 kilograms. A powerful coat, 70–80 cm long, protected mammoths from the cold. The average life expectancy was 45–50, with a maximum of 80 years. The main reason for the extinction of these highly specialized animals is a sharp warming and humidification of the climate at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene, snowy winters, as well as extensive marine transgression that flooded the shelf of Eurasia and North America.
The structural features of the limbs and trunk, body proportions, the shape and size of the mammoth's tusks indicate that he, like modern elephants, ate various plant foods. With the help of tusks, animals dug food from under the snow, stripped the bark of trees; mined ice vein, used in winter instead of water. For grinding food, the mammoth had on each side of the upper and lower jaw at the same time only one, very large tooth. The chewing surface of these teeth was a wide, long plate covered with transverse enamel ridges. Apparently, in the warm season, animals fed mainly on grassy vegetation. Cereals and sedges predominated in the intestines and oral cavity of mammoths that died in the summer, lingonberry bushes, green mosses and thin shoots of willow, birch, alder were found in small quantities. The weight of an adult mammoth filled with food could reach 240 kg. It can be assumed that in winter, especially in snowy areas, in the nutrition of animals, shoots of woody-shrubbery vegetation became of primary importance. The huge amount of feed consumed forced mammoths, like modern elephants, to lead a mobile lifestyle and often change their feeding areas.
Adult mammoths were massive animals, with relatively long legs and a short body. Their height at the withers reached 3.5 m in males and 3 m in females. A characteristic feature of the appearance of the mammoth was a sharp slope of the back, and for old males - a pronounced cervical interception between the "hump" and the head. In mammoths, these exterior features were softened, and the top line of the head – back was a single, slightly curved upward arc. Such an arc is present in adult mammoths, as well as in modern elephants, and is connected, purely mechanically, with maintaining the enormous weight of internal organs. The mammoth's head was larger than that of modern elephants. The ears are small, oval elongated, 5–6 times smaller than that of the Asian elephant, and 15–16 times less than that of the African one. The rostral part of the skull was rather narrow, the alveoli of the tusks were located very close to each other, and the base of the trunk rested on them. Tusks are more powerful than those of African and Asian elephants: their length in old males reached 4 m with a base diameter of 16–18 cm, in addition, they were twisted up and in. The tusks of the females were smaller (2–2.2 m, diameter at the base 8–10 cm) and almost straight. The ends of the tusks, due to the peculiarities of the extraction of feed, were usually erased only from the outside. The legs of the mammoths were massive, five-fingered, with 3 small hooves on the front and 4 on the hind limbs; the feet are round, their diameter in adults 40–45 cm. The special arrangement of the bones of the hand contributed to its greater compactness, and loose subcutaneous tissue and elastic skin allowed the foot to expand and increase its area on soft marshy soils. But nevertheless, the most unique feature of the appearance of the mammoth is a thick coat of hair, consisting of three types of hair: undercoat, intermediate and hiding, or core. The topography and color of the coat was relatively the same for males and females: on the forehead and on the head there was a cap of black, coarse hair directed forward, 15–20 cm long, and the trunk and ears were covered with an undercoat and awn of brown or brown color. The entire body of the mammoth was also covered with long, 80–90 cm outer hair, under which a thick yellowish undercoat was hidden. The color of the skin of the body was light yellow or brown, dark pigment spots were observed in areas free of hair. For the winter, mammoths molted; winter wool was thicker and lighter than summer.
A special relationship connected mammoths with primitive man. Mammoth remains in the sites of early Paleolithic humans were quite rare and belonged mainly to young individuals. It seems that primitive hunters at that time did not often obtain mammoths, and the hunt for these huge animals was rather an accident event. In the Late Paleolithic settlements, the picture changes dramatically: the number of bones increases, the ratio of males, females and young animals mined approaches the natural structure of the herd. The hunt for mammoths and other large animals of that period is no longer selective, but mass in nature; the main way to get animals becomes a shelter on rocky cliffs, in hunting pits, on fragile ice of rivers and lakes, in swampy areas of swamps and rafts. The driven animals were finished off with stones, darts and spears with stone tips. Mammoth meat was used for food, tusks - for the manufacture of weapons and crafts, bones, skulls and skins went to the construction of houses and ritual structures. The massive hunting of people of the Late Paleolithic, the increase in the number of hunter tribes, the improvement of hunting tools and production methods against the background of constantly deteriorating living conditions associated with changes in habitual landscapes, according to some researchers, played a decisive role in the fate of these animals.
The importance of mammoths in the life of primitive people is evidenced by the fact that even 20-30 thousand years ago, artists of the Cro-Magnon era depicted mammoths on stone and bone, using flint incisors and shaving brush with ocher, ferrous oxide and manganese oxides. Previously, the paint was rubbed with fat or bone marrow. Flat images were applied on the walls of caves, on slates of graphite and graphite, on the fragments of tusks; sculptural - created from bone, marl or slate using flint incisors. It may well be that such figures were used as talismans, tribal totems, or played another ritual role. Despite the limited expressive means, many of the images are very artistic, and accurately convey the appearance of fossil giants.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a little over twenty reliable finds of mammoth remains in the form of frozen carcasses, their parts, skeletons with the remains of soft tissues and skin were known in Siberia. We can also assume that some of the finds remained unknown to science, they learned about many too late and were unable to investigate them. By the example of the mammoth Adams, discovered in 1799 on the Bykovsky Peninsula, it is clear that the news about the animals found came to the Academy of Sciences only a few years after they were discovered, and getting to the far corners of Siberia even in the second half of the 20th century was not easy . The great difficulty was the removal of the corpse from frozen soil and its transportation. Excavation and delivery of a mammoth discovered in the Berezovka river valley in 1900 (undoubtedly the most significant of the paleozoological finds of the early twentieth century), without exaggeration, can be called heroic.
In the XX century, the number of finds of mammoth remains in Siberia doubled. This is due to the wide development of the North, the rapid development of transport and communications, the rise of the cultural level of the population. The first complex expedition using modern technology was a trip for the Taimyr mammoth, found in 1948 on an unnamed river, later called the Mammoth River. The removal of the remains of animals “soldered” to the permafrost is nowadays much easier thanks to the use of motor pumps that defrost and erode the soil with water. A remarkable natural monument should be considered the "cemetery" of mammoths, discovered by N.F. Grigoryev in 1947 on the Berelekh River (the left tributary of the Indigirka River) in Yakutia. For 200 meters, the river bank here is covered with a placer of mammoth bones, washed from the coastal slope.
Studying the Magadan (1977) and Yamal (1988) mammoths, scientists were able to clarify not only many questions of the anatomy and morphology of mammoths, but also draw a number of important conclusions about their environment and causes of extinction. The last few years have brought new remarkable findings in Siberia: the Yukagir mammoth (2002), which is unique from a scientific point of view, material (the head of an adult mammoth with the remains of soft tissues and hair) and a mammoth found in 2007 in the river basin, is especially worth mentioning Yuribey on the Yamal Peninsula. Outside of Russia, it is worth noting the finds of mammoth remains made by American scientists in Alaska, as well as the unique “graveyard-trap” with the remains of more than 100 mammoths, discovered by L. Agenbrod in the town of Hot Springs (South Dakota, USA) in 1974.
The exhibits of the mammoth hall are unique - after all, the animals represented here have already disappeared from the face of the earth several thousand years ago. Some of the most significant of them need to be described in more detail.
Woolly mammoths were closely associated genetically with today's Asian elephants. They were very much like their modern cousins, with the exception of one big difference. They were covered with a dense woolen coat of brown color, such a dense coat helped maintain body heat on the cold arctic plains. Even the ears of these animals were covered with thick fur.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), woolly mammoths grew about 13 feet (4 meters) tall and weighed up to 6 tons (5.44 metric tons). According to National Geographic, hair on some parts of the body could reach up to 3 feet (1 m) in length. The main types of mammoths did not exceed modern elephants in size, but at the same time a subspecies called Mammuthus imperator, who lived in North America, reached a height of 5 meters and a mass of 12 tons, and dwarf species Mammuthus exilis and Mammuthus lamarmorae did not exceed 2 meters in height and gained weight not more than 900 kg.
Their huge curved tusks may have been used for fighting. Mammoths may also have been able to use them to dig up bushes, grasses, roots, and other small plants from under the snow.
It will be interesting for you to find out: a very well-preserved corpse of a female mammoth was found in Siberia (which was given the name Lyuba). After computed tomography, scientists found that the baby died stuck in a swamp more than 40,000 years ago.
Although woolly mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago, people know very little about them, due to the fact that these animals lived in very inaccessible places for humans. In the permafrost of the Arctic, many corpses of woolly mammoths have been preserved. When the ice around the banks of ancient rivers and streams cracked, very often found the bodies of long-dead mammoths, which looked almost the same as at the time of their death.
For example, in 2007 in Siberia a pair of mummified mammoths was found. The bodies were so well preserved that computed tomography revealed the cause of death: they, like the mammoth Luba, were choked with mud 40,000 years ago. The mud was like a thick dough that covered their trachea, said study co-author Daniel Fisher, director of the University of Michigan's Paleontology Museum.
Botanist Mikhail Ivanovich Adams restored the first fossilized skeleton of the Siberian woolly mammoth in 1806. Since then, more than a dozen soft tissue samples have been found.
Habitat
Although woolly mammoths are known for living in the cold lands of the Arctic, they actually came from much warmer places. A study by a team from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, showed that the ancestors of mammoths and Asian elephants appeared in Africa approximately 6.7 million - 7 million years ago. Presumably, they lived there for about 4 million years, and then migrated to southern Europe.
About a million years passed and they spread even further into Asia to Siberia and the northern plains of Canada. It was at this time that a disaster occurred on the planet that caused the global “Ice Age,” said Kevin Campbell of the University of Manitoba research team.
According to scientists, woolly mammoths were able to survive in a much colder climate, thanks to a sudden genetic mutation, which may have changed the way oxygen was transported by blood throughout the body, so the body began to retain more heat.
