Mammoths are amazing mammals that have become extinct from climate change. They are distant relatives of modern elephants.
View of mammoths is one of the beststudied in modern paleontology. First of all, this can be explained by the fact that they lived on Earth relatively recently and even were contemporaries of man. Until now, researchers often stumble upon the remains of these animals.
Так когда вымерли мамонты?This happened about 10 thousand years ago, when the last global cooling occurred in the global climate. Because of this, a violent species struggle for survival began. People who by this time have mastered various hunting tools, have become a threat to all mammoths. One carcass of such an animal could feed the tribe for a long time. Because of this, the range of these proboscis decreased more and more.
Paleontologists often find remainsgiant animals just at the sites of ancient people. Bones were carefully processed with the help of stone tools, so that later they could be used as tools in everyday life. The hunters had to invent many tricks to catch such a giant as a mammoth. The extinct animal did not succumb to the impacts of primitive copies. Of course, it was absolutely impossible for a man to overcome such a creature. Therefore, he was hunted by groups. On the trails, where mammoths wandered out of habit, the camouflaged pits ransacked, where the animal fell and became easy prey. Often spears or darts aimed at the groin - one of the few weaknesses. Similar methods in the XIX century used the aborigines of Africa when hunting for local elephants.
In addition, there was another important reason whymammoths have died out. These animals did not have enough food. Many species that they ate, died out due to cold snap (total for this period disappeared 34 species). The lack of food and the human threat led to the fact that there were no mammoths left in the world. This phenomenon of mass extinction due to changes in living conditions in modern science was called the Great Holocene extinction.
There are several secondary featuresthe fidelity of the theory that it was the climate that became the main cause of the disappearance of these mammals. When the mammoths died out, not only other animals, but also individual human communities disappeared with them. For example, this was the culture of Clovis. It was made by the natives of the Stone Age, who lived in Central and North America. That is, the coexistence of mammoths and humans did not become the cause of extinction of proboscis.
Climate change included not onlysharp chills (changing the diet), but also warming, which is already directly beaten by these giants. The retreat of the ice and taiga to the north forced them to migrate farther into the extreme latitudes, where they eventually became extinct.
The newest discoveries show that even afterthe disappearance of woolly elephants on the mainland, some isolated colonies existed on separate archipelagoes. For example, on the island of Wrangel were found bones, whose age was about 4 thousand years. So scientists have proved that isolated schools still took place when ancient pyramids were already being built in ancient Egypt, and Mycenaean civilization appeared in Greece. Of course, the inhabitants of the then Mediterranean did not know when the mammoths died out.
On the Wrangel Island the mammoth period lastedan extra thousand years. However, these animals were different from those that had been prevalent throughout Eurasia. Their size rarely reached 1.5 meters. It was connected with the fact that the food chain had changed a lot. Mammoths had to reduce the diet, which affected the growth of individuals in childhood. These data became known after the teeth were found and analyzed on the Wrangel Island by Russian paleontologists in 1993. The last "dwarf" community no longer knew predators, which could be a threat to them. Therefore, most of the fossils found correspond to older individuals.
When the mammoths died out on the mainland, their placeoccupied other species. On the Wrangel Island, the isolated community continued to exist and develop peacefully. But why did the mammoths die out on this small piece of sushi? Perhaps it was a man who was a boss here. Unlike the previous era, when mammoths inhabited millions of square kilometers, killing only a few individuals on one island could upset the balance within the community.
Now, when it became clear how many years agomammoths died out, you can tell about the environment in which they experienced their heyday. This period took place about 120 thousand years ago. At this time, mammoths lived not only in modern Siberia, but also in Europe, up to Spain. In Asia, this habitat reached the shores of the Caspian Sea. Here, too, the remains were found after the mammoths died out. The era of their predominance in the surrounding fauna lasted several tens of millennia.
Mammoths helped the climate.During the Quaternary, Eurasia experienced three strong cold snaps when glaciers appeared far to the south of the Arctic Circle. Harsh continental climate greatly reduced the area of impassable forests. Conversely, the size of the steppes, suitable for mammoths, increased significantly.
Around these giants has always been a rich fauna, withwhich they somehow contacted. They were reindeer, hairy rhinos, musk oxen, horses, yaks, cave bears, saigas. Among small mammals, lemming, gopher, etc. are worth mentioning. In total, there are about 80 species of fauna.
When, due to gradual warming, thick forests came to replace native tundra-steppes, the mammoths left these places. So their area was reduced, but in the end they disappeared altogether.
The peoples of the Far North today keep manylegends about woolly giants who once lived on their land. Siberia was a place where the hunt for a mammoth flourished. Komi, Khanty, Mansi and other native inhabitants of the boundless tundra have kept legends about them in folklore. In addition, these people even before the Europeans often found relict teeth and bones, which were used in everyday life or as expensive jewelry.
Alaskan Eskimos cut out images of thesemammals on their weapons made from walrus bones. Laplanders living in the north of Scandinavia believe that mammoths are fur-covered giants who hide under the ground. The Chukchas of Eastern Siberia have preserved legends about mammoths as carriers of the evil spirit.
These animals from Eurasia came to America.In Indian folklore there are also legends about "huge buffaloes". The hunt for a mammoth was spread both on one and the other continent. Due to the global cooling, the world ocean level has dropped significantly, which made it possible for animals and people to travel from one part of the world to another.
