11.6. Who did the Olduvai people hunt? Around residential areas in Olduvai, the fossilized remains of giraffes, various antelopes and a tooth of Deinotherium, an extinct elephant, were found. The Olduvai people ate heavily and may have preferred to dine outside rather than in a shelter where there was no room.

Where did mammoths come from? What kind of life did you lead? Why did they die out? The scientific community has been struggling with these mysteries for several centuries. And each new study refutes the previous one.

Yakut treasures

It all started with the Amsterdam burgomaster Witsen, when in 1692 he first described an intact mammoth carcass found in Yakutia. He didn't even know what he would give new life extinct animal species. Modern scientists increasingly call Yakutia the homeland of mammoths. This may not be the historical homeland, but at least it is the place with the highest concentration of mammoth populations in the past.

In recent years, the largest number of animal remains have been found here (according to statistics, about 80%), including well-preserved ones. The scientific world was especially struck by the latest discovery - a 60-year-old female mammoth. But its uniqueness lies not so much in the preservation of the tissues, but in the liquid blood contained in them. This find could give scientists new knowledge about the genetic and molecular composition of primitive animals.

Mammoths began to die out due to warming

To this version in lately More and more scientists are inclined. Dr. Dale Guthrie from the University of Alaska, who made radiocarbon dating of the remains of animals and people who lived more than 10 thousand, agrees with her years ago. According to Guthrie, climate change transformed a dry and cold area into a wetter and warmer one, which in turn led to a modification of vegetation - something the mammoths simply did not have time to adapt to.
Other scientific evidence confirms the decline of tundra forests, the main habitat of mammoths. Like reindeer, mammoths, depending on the time of year, wandered in search of their usual food - in the summer they moved to the north, and in the winter to the southern regions. And then one day they were faced with a lack of tundra vegetation.

In 1900, on the banks of the Berezovka River, a mammoth carcass practically untouched by time and predators was discovered. Later, other similar remains were found. Some details, including unchewed grass, suggested that the animals died suddenly. The version of murder was dropped immediately - there were no signs of damage. Scientists puzzled over this mystery for a long time and finally came to an unexpected conclusion - the animals died after falling into the melted wormwood. Over time, researchers were able to discover more and more animals that ended up in the old riverbeds. The rise in temperature played a cruel joke on them.

Here is another fact in favor of the version of the extinction of animals due to global warming. Researchers have found that during the process of climate change, mammoths also changed their size. During the ice ages (Zyryansk and Sartan times) they became larger, and during periods of global warming (Kazantsev and Kargin times) they became smaller. It follows from this that cold was more preferable to mammoths than warmth.

People didn't hunt mammoths

According to one hypothesis, the mammoths were exterminated by hunters, at least, British naturalist Alfred Wallace was inclined to believe this version. Indeed, in the sites of ancient man, many items made from mammoth skin and tusks are found. We also know about people hunting mammoths from school textbooks. However, modern researchers claim that man did not hunt mammoths, but only finished off sick and weak animals. The fact is that with warming, those who rose to the top groundwater washed away minerals from the soil that were part of the mammoths' plant food. The fragility of the bones, which appeared as a result of a poor diet, made the giants vulnerable to humans.

A.V. Bogdanov in his book “Secrets of the Lost Civilization” convincingly proves the impossibility of people hunting mammoths. A modern elephant has a skin of about 7 centimeters, and a mammoth, due to a layer of subcutaneous fat, had even thicker skin. “Try yourself with a stick and a stone to pierce the skin, which does not burst even from the tusks of five-ton males,” says the writer.
But then Bogdanov is even more convincing. Among the reasons, he cites the very tough and stringy mammoth meat, which was practically impossible to eat, as well as the actions necessary for successful hunting that were beyond the strength of even a large group of people. To catch even a medium-sized specimen, you need to dig a hole of at least 7 cubic meters, which is impossible to do with primitive tools. It is even more difficult to drive a mammoth into a hole. These are herd animals, and when trying to take even a baby from the herd, hunters risked being trampled by multi-ton carcasses.

Contemporaries of the Egyptian pyramids

Until recently, it was believed that mammoths disappeared from the face of the earth 10,000 years ago. But at the end of the 20th century, the remains found on Wrangel Island significantly corrected the dating. Based on the data obtained, scientists have determined that these individuals died approximately 3,700 years ago. “Mammoths inhabited this island when they already stood Egyptian pyramids and the Mycenaean civilization flourished,” states Frederik Paulsen. The Wrangel Island mammoths lived when most of these animals on the planet had long since disappeared. What made them move to the island? This remains a mystery for now.

Holy tooth

In the Middle Ages, people who unearthed the bones of mammoths had no idea who they belonged to and often mistook them for the remains of cynocephali who lived in legendary times - huge creatures with a dog's head and human body. For example, in Valencia, a mammoth molar tooth was a sacred relic, which according to legend belonged to the “dog-headed” Christopher, a holy martyr revered by the Catholic and Orthodox Church. It was recorded that during processions back in 1789, canons also carried a mammoth femur along with a tooth, passing it off as a fragment of the saint’s hand.

Relatives

Mammoths are close relatives of elephants. This is evidenced by their scientific name Elefas primigenius (translated from Latin as “first-born elephant”). According to one version, the elephant is the result of the evolution of the mammoth, which adapted to more warm climate. Perhaps this is not so far from reality, because the mammoths of the late time corresponded in their parameters to the Asian elephant.

But German scientists compared the DNA of an elephant and a mammoth, and came to a paradoxical conclusion: the mammoth and the Indian elephant are two branches that descended from the African elephant about 6 million years ago. Indeed, recent studies have shown that the ancestor of the African elephant lived on earth more than 7 million years ago, and therefore this version does not seem fantastic.

"Resurrect" the giant!

Scientists are already quite for a long time do not give up attempts to “resurrect” the mammoth. So far to no avail. The main obstacle to the successful cloning of an extinct animal, according to Semyon Grigoriev (head of the P. A. Lazarev Mammoth Museum), is the lack of source material of proper quality. But, nevertheless, he is convinced of the good prospects of this endeavor. He places his main hopes on a recently extracted female mammoth with preserved liquid blood.
While Russian scientists are trying to recreate the DNA of an ancient animal, Japanese experts have abandoned ambitious plans to populate the Russian Far East mammoths due to the futility of the idea of ​​their “resurrection”. Time will tell who was right.

Some experts, such as paleoecologist Felisa Smith from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, do not rule out that humans also changed the climate... by destroying mammoths and other northern giants. “With the disappearance of large mammals that produce large amounts of methane, the level of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere should have decreased by about 200 units,” explains Smith. “This led to a cooling of 9–12°C about 14 thousand years ago.” The relationship between climate and mammoths is not denied by geophysicist Sergei Zimov, head of the North-Eastern scientific station, located in the lower reaches of Kolyma. “Do you think a man couldn’t kill a mammoth? Nothing? – he asks and then he himself, not without irony, answers: “I rolled up the mammoth’s wool with a long roller, urinated; There is frost all around - here comes the spear. I used the same wool to fasten the stone to the shaft, and did the same with the axe.”

In 2008, an unusual accumulation of bones of mammoths and other animals was discovered, which could not have appeared as a result of natural processes.

As the most ancient religious scripture tells us, “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” But, however, let’s leave the consideration of religious texts to theologians and approach the matter as ordinary atheists, because it is difficult for a deeply religious person to be absolutely impartial in science.

The most common misconception

The most common misconception: an atheist is a person who denies the existence of God.

Theism is a doctrine about God, and it is opposed by another doctrine - atheism; it is not based on the denial of God, but simply excludes him from its explanation of the world. The spirit of antitheism is alien to atheism; it does not proclaim the struggle with God as its task.

But the concept of God exists, just as the concepts of logic, dialectics, conscience and the like exist, so to say that there is no God would be incorrect. But this concept is not part of the atheist's worldview. He is not guided by this concept in everyday life, does not compare his actions, thoughts, feelings against it; his spiritual experiences take place outside the concept of God...

Personally, I can neither confidently deny nor confirm the existence of unknown forces that give us reason for mystical fantasies. In religious matters, the closest thing to me is the position of one great physicist, who said: “There is no God, but there is something much more serious.” Therefore, let us approach the matter somewhat atheistically, because it is difficult for a deeply religious person, as well as one who completely denies God, to be absolutely impartial in science.

In the book I do not affirm anything unconditionally, but if I assume something, it means that I have sufficient grounds for it. I always try to express myself precisely, so in the story you will find quite a lot of words expressing varying degrees of confidence: it seems, probably, perhaps, apparently, convinced...

The book is devoid of “scientific” in the academic understanding of the term, but this does not mean at all that it is based on the author’s naked imagination. No, it contains a lot of factual material, to which the author gives his own interpretation. For a better understanding of the author’s idea, I would like to immediately make two very important warnings.

First. The sequence presented in the book historical events in time coordinates is different, not the one generally accepted in historical science! The text must be read assuming that humanity has developed consistently, without leaps and regressive failures, because such a course of historical events is dictated by the logic of the development of human society. Therefore, do not try to immediately link the events presented to famous years, look for their place in the generally accepted system of chronological coordinates. You can do this later, but through the prism of my version.

And second. BY PUBLISHING THE BOOK THE AUTHOR DOES NOT PURSUIT ANY POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS GOALS! THE CONVERSATION IS ONLY FOR THE GOOD OF TRUTH AND HUMANITY. QUOTES FROM RELIGIOUS BOOKS OR ORAL TRADES OF DIFFERENT TIMES AND PEOPLES ARE USED ONLY AS A SOURCE OF HISTORICAL INFORMATION.

Based on logic, common sense and knowledge of human nature, I want to outline my vision of the development of our civilization. By “our civilization” I mean the earthly classical one, first of all European history, from which Russian culture stems, from the Ancient World to the present day. The history of prehistoric man does not interest us.

While working on the book, I proceeded from the assumption that traditional history is familiar to the reader, and he is able to calmly and soberly analyze even the most unexpected hypotheses. But no mysticism, charlatanism, “flying saucers” or thoughts about the “other world” can be found in the book; this is a purely historical study. Although some evidence real story more breathtaking than tales of the underworld!

For a person who is prejudiced or has a damaged psyche (Russophobe, anti-Semite, etc.), it is probably better not to read the book at all, so as not to get upset again. And I will try to tell the rest as interesting as possible, without lengthening the story as much as possible.

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine!

How long ago did our planet appear? How many years has man existed on Earth? Is it possible to resolve historical mysteries, now considered unsolvable? Eat a whole army people who have devoted their entire lives to answering these and similar questions, and it would be dishonest on my part to take a piece of bread from them. But, on the other hand, I can’t help but notice that this “army” has given so many answers that, if desired, one can defend the correctness of one or a completely contrary judgment, and even obvious absurdity can be easily defended with references to authoritative sources. In general, as Byron wrote in Manfred, “Science is the exchange of some ignorance for another.” Therefore, I offer my thoughts with a light heart, without fear of being challenged. And who is undeniable? Only God, who in the beginning created the firmament of the earth, from which everything began.

“The earth was chaotic and empty, darkness stretched over the abyss, and the Spirit of the Almighty hovered over the waters...”

According to generally accepted ideas, the Earth is the fruit of internal cosmic processes, the result of the “work” of the cosmos. A bright red clot of hot cosmic gases absorbs streams of flying stones and dust... Getting into this clot, the stones melt, hiss, and evaporate gases. Now the basalt, then the granite base appeared - the earth's solid (cast) - and the liquid component appeared; the young planet is covered with a kind of fog - the future air. The active phase of formation is replaced by gradual attenuation and cooling of the surface. This was the period of the emergence of biological life. Then - according to the same officially accepted ideas in science - primitive organisms appeared in the water, they crawled onto land and developed into different creatures, of two sexes at once: something became a dinosaur with a female dinosaur, something developed into a mammoth with a female mammoth, which -it became a creeping reptile with... well, with a female creature of the same species; and some cunning " gastropod“managed to turn into a monkey on land. She lived carefree for millions of years, but suddenly she wanted to work “by the sweat of her brow” - to plow the land, to get the harvest... And it was from her that man came... Everyone knows this version from school, and I will not analyze it in detail.

Recently, the following information circulated on the Internet: an international group of scientists, as a result of many years of work, came to the conclusion that the Earth was suitable for life immediately after its origin. They claim that our planet arose in its current form and since then has practically not changed its original appearance. According to researchers, the planet, immediately after its origin, was ready to shelter living beings, and all statements that at first the Earth was completely covered by oceans, and then the continental crust melted on it, where the inhabitants of the waters then got out, are erroneous.

In the rocks of the Western Australian Jack Hills mountain range (it is considered the oldest on Earth, its age is 4.4 billion years), the rare earth metal hafnium was discovered in combination with zirconium crystals. According to the analysis, scientists have established that the continental crust differs from that located under the oceans in structure and thickness and was formed 4.4–4.5 billion years ago, that is, almost immediately after the birth of the planet. Before this, it was believed that it gradually melted out of the oceanic one.

"It looks like the Earth formed in one moment," said one of the researchers, Stephen Moizis of the University of Colorado. Under his leadership, a study was conducted proving that water immediately appeared on the surface of the planet approximately 4.3 billion years ago, and did not condense from the atmosphere over 3.8 billion years, as previously thought.

“New data suggests that the Earth’s crust, oceans and atmosphere existed from the very beginning, and the planet was already suitable for life,” Moizis is convinced.

I don’t want to consider the question of human origins at all.

There are many conjectures on this score, up to the spontaneous appearance of the protein in the exosphere (the uppermost, near-cosmic layer of the atmosphere) and its settling on the surface of the planet. There are also hypotheses about the coming of man to globe from other planets, for example from Sirius, Mars, Phaethon, and even suggest that from the satellites of Jupiter. But the question of the origin of man on Earth in no way concerns our topic, and therefore I immediately go to the given: once upon a time man arose.

Numerous ancient documents testify that initially the existence of man on our planet was truly heavenly: he did not know hunger, cold, disease... But it is also quite obvious that a period came when our ancestor suddenly became forced to fight for survival, for his existence and with many through efforts to get out of the state of animal relations with the outside world.

I leave outside the scope of my story the difficult path that ancient man had to go through. I can only note in passing that the official picture of the life of ancient man does not satisfy me at all. Moreover, it is largely illogical, unsubstantiated and harmful to building a correct idea of ancient world. For example, we know from school that ancient man hunted mammoths. And even the modern Big Encyclopedic Dictionary confirms this:

“MAMOTH is an extinct mammal of the elephant family. Lived in the 2nd half of the Pleistocene in Eurasia and North America. He was a contemporary of Stone Age man. Height 2.5–3.5 m. Weight 3–5 tons. Extinct at the end of the Pleistocene as a result of:

a) CLIMATE CHANGE and

b) HUNTING HIM MAN.

In northern Siberia, in the Kolyma basin, in Alaska and other places on the planet, mammoths with soft tissues, skin and wool preserved in permafrost layers were found.”

But let's think about it. The remains of mammoths are found all over the world: both in warm latitudes and in cold ones. What kind of “climate change” caused all the mammoths to become extinct overnight, during, as paleontologists say, “one cosmic minute”?

Let’s answer another question: “For what reason did ancient man need to hunt mammoths?” It’s hard to imagine a more meaningless activity! Firstly, even the skin of a modern elephant is up to 7 cm thick, and the mammoth also had a thick layer of subcutaneous fat. Try yourself with a stick and a stone to break through the skin, which does not burst even from the tusks of five-ton males when they fight among themselves.

Secondly, even if you took such a skin from a dead mammoth, sew yourself a “suit” from it and run around in it, and I’ll see how long you can last.

Thirdly, mammoth meat is rough, stringy, and low in nutrition. Why did ancient man need to eat very tough mammoth meat, if there were plenty of fruits, vegetables, roots, fish in the rivers, as well as animals and birds with more tender meat?

Fourthly, in pictures of ancient hunts in history textbooks, a poor mammoth sits dejectedly in a hole, and people throw stones at his head. Stupidity without comment. But here’s a hole... Who dug the hole? Even an average individual needed a hole of at least five to seven cubic meters. Try to dig a hole for at least a baby elephant. Don’t take an iron shovel; it didn’t exist then.

Fifthly, the mammoth must also be directed and driven into the pit. Mammoths, like elephants, are herd animals. For the sake of an experiment, gather all your acquaintances and try, with sticks in your hands, to approach and recapture one of its members from a herd of wild African elephants (by the way, not yet tamed!).

And also sixthly, seventhly and eighthly... Why is this outright absurdity repeated from generation to generation?

There is quite a lot of evidence that the traditional picture of the life of ancient man, to put it mildly, does not correspond to reality. An article was published in the Alphabet magazine (No. 1, 2002), which states that “... European archaeologists made a sensational discovery, and now we know how women of the Paleolithic dressed. Contrary to popular belief, the ancestors wore not only fetid leather and skins. Prehistoric women had in their “wardrobe” hats and hair nets, belts and skirts, panties and bras, as well as bracelets and necklaces made from plant fibers.

There were real fabrics, in the production of which quite weaving technologies were used. And although there was no single fashion in the vastness of Eurasia, the best examples of weaving from the Paleolithic times can compete with products of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. What a Neolithic! Modern thin cotton is almost no better than Paleolithic cotton.

Until now, our distant past was presented to us in the form of compositions in historical museums: monkey-like men in skins with clubs driving mammoths, the same beast-like women with saggy breasts nursing children and roasting meat on fires. Looks like it's time to reconsider this picture. New data convincingly proves that the role of women in prehistoric society was much more significant than we previously thought. If the ancient ladies knew how to sew and wear precious woven clothes with grace, one must think that their position in society was far from slavish, but rather equal. And their husbands must have had some artistic taste. Otherwise, for whom would primitive fashionistas dress up?”

Here is the text. Now let’s give ourselves the trouble to think. I quote an article from the most modern electronic encyclopedic dictionary Cyril and Methodius:

“Paleolithic - from paleo... and... lit, ancient Stone Age, the first period of the Stone Age, the time of the existence of fossil man (paleoanthropes, etc.), who used chipped stone, wooden, and bone tools, and was engaged in hunting and gathering. The Paleolithic lasted from the emergence of man (over 2 million years ago) until approximately the 10th millennium BC.”

If an inexperienced reader wants to know when man appeared on Earth, he will find a variety of figures: from 10 thousand to two million years ago.

Moreover, due to age, I can trace how this figure has changed. When I was studying at school, it was known that man originated 35–40 thousand years ago, then this figure slowly increased to 70, 100, 140, 200 thousand. Then the American film “One Million Years BC” appeared on cinema screens, and there people were already running around the earth and, mooing inarticulately, fighting off annoying dinosaurs; The film's consultants are America's most respected historians. Now the figure has reached two million. Who is bigger?

The reader must understand that chronological figures are the holy of holies for the historian. If I change the number of the supposed appearance of man on Earth, then with the change in number the whole picture of earthly life changes from the very first day to the present day. And if in the most modern definition they ask me to find out that two million years ago paleoanthropes ran around our planet - apes(so primitive that the only tools they had were stone scrapers and the bones of killed animals), and at the same time, it turns out, they wore panties and bras, which in terms of the fineness of weaving are not inferior to modern underwear, then I understand that in the officially accepted picture of prehistoric The world is in complete confusion.

Typically, archaeologists and paleontologists proceed from the fact that the original man was a carnivore, with rough features: animal hands, a massive jaw, a forehead hanging over the eyes. There is a feeling that there was no man as such (thinking) in essence, there was a beast; It turns out that evolution had to work hard, “correcting” the mistakes of the Creator.

I can vividly imagine how the ancestor of the gentlemen who claim the above is tearing raw meat with his teeth - but this is by no means a person! Then he digestive system for some reason suddenly becomes delicate (probably raw meat contributes to the transformation of an animal into a human), and he begins to bake the meat on the fire (naturally, he does not have iron cauldrons for cooking food), and his young child eats the same thing... Find the person , whose stomach is capable of digesting the coarsest food, feed him in this way, and in a maximum of a year he will die from such nutrition. But they want to assure us that man has been eating this way for hundreds of thousands of years and has acquired the appearance of modern people.

Thank God, not one modern encyclopedia no longer claims that Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon and the like were an intermediate link between ape and man. Moreover, a team of European scientists led by Svent Pääbo conducted a study at Stanford University, which proved with high probability that mixing of early humans and Neanderthals did not occur. By isolating mitochondrial DNA from four Neanderthals and five contemporary ones European people, scientists found no evidence of a significant genetic transition. It is quite possible that man could have been created in a different natural “perform” (in the canine family: a dog, a wolf, a jackal, a coyote, a dingo, a fox, and an arctic fox), and on the other hand cardiovascular system(air pressure and density were once different, the Earth’s magnetic field was many times stronger), and on the other hand respiratory system, (the Earth’s atmosphere did not always consist of the nitrogen-oxygen mixture familiar to us; the oxygen content in air bubbles in ancient amber was 28%), but de facto the weakest, most unadapted species for life on this planet - homo delicatus - managed to survive and adapt. an elegant person. When you begin to list all the “unsuitability” of a person for life in these earthly conditions, you want to exclaim: “How could a person even appear here and survive!” And suddenly, with amazing clarity, you begin to understand that man, in all respects, was not created for this planet... Or it should be admitted that when he appeared, conditions on Earth were different!

But the main thing for me is not arguing with learned men, God be with him: they hunted, and so be it, if you really want to believe in it. The existence of primordial man is not the subject of this book, and if necessary, I will limit myself to remarks of a purely informative and puzzling nature.

There are theories going back to J. Cuvier, according to them, the life of mankind proceeds in cycles: it reaches the peak of its development and then, either due to geological reasons, or due to a bad character, destroys itself, descending to a primitive state, and then passes again historical path. As for the bad character, this is true, the rest is doubtful.

In the statements of biologists, one can always read the idea hidden in the subconscious that the gene code of living beings is in a process of constant change (oh, these evolutionists), and all species are in constant mixing. No, gentlemen, on Earth each species has its own independent path. Hyenas do not turn into wolves, and jackals do not turn into arctic foxes. And not a single monkey over the course of thousands of years known to mankind has come even half a step closer to a human being. external signs, nor at the genetic level.

It would be more correct to say that only those living beings exist on earth that CAN exist under given physical conditions. Those who are not adapted for life on this planet cannot appear at all or will inevitably disappear IF THE EARTH'S ENVIRONMENT THAT IS USUAL TO THEM CHANGES, THAT IS THE CONDITIONS OF THEIR EXISTENCE.

The truth is obvious: each species existed on Earth on its own and did not transform into anyone. And many species of living beings were forced to disappear in an instant for a very compelling reason. Namely: a very strong geocosmic catastrophe.

I BELIEVE THAT TWO CATASTROPHES ON A UNIVERSAL SCALE HAVE CHANGED THE PATH OF EARTHLY CIVILIZATION.

Over the past twenty years, I have probably read everything that has been written about disasters, and I know that many disasters have occurred on earth. But it is unlikely that they were destructive for humanity.

I MEAN CATASTROPHES THAT RADICALLY CHANGED NOT ONLY PHYSICS, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY OF THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE ESSENCE OF ALL LIFE ON THIS PLANET, AND MAN HIMSELF INCLUDING.

For convenience, I will continue to refer to each of them as “catastrophe”. Or sometimes - “cataclysm”.

It is still unclear why they became extinct. And although they lived on the Arctic Wrangel Island until the time of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, there is no written evidence about the reasons for the disappearance of mammoths from our planet.

If we discard assumptions about the fall, eruption and others natural disasters, the main reasons will be people.

In 2008, an unusual accumulation of bones of mammoths and other animals was discovered, which could not have appeared as a result of natural processes, such as hunting by predators or the death of animals. These were the skeletal remains of at least 26 mammoths, and the bones were sorted by species.

Apparently, people for a long time kept the bones that were most interesting to them, some of which bear traces of tools. And the people of the end of the Ice Age had no shortage of hunting weapons.

How were carcass parts delivered to the sites? And Belgian archaeozoologists have an answer to this: they could transport meat and tusks from the butchering site using dogs.

Mammoths went extinct about 10 thousand years ago during the last Ice Age. Some experts do not rule out that humans also changed the climate... by destroying mammoths and other northern giants. With the disappearance of large mammals that produce large amounts of methane, the level of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere should have decreased by about 200 units. This led to a cooling of 9–12°C about 14 thousand years ago.

Mammoths reached a height of 5.5 meters and a body weight of 10-12 tons. Thus, these giants were twice as heavy as the largest modern land mammals - African elephants.

In Siberia and Alaska, there are known cases of the discovery of mammoth corpses that were preserved due to their presence in the thickness of permafrost. Therefore, scientists are not dealing with individual fossils or several skeleton bones, but can even study the blood, muscles, and fur of these animals and also determine what they ate.

Mammoths had a massive body, long hair and long curved tusks; the latter could serve the mammoth for obtaining food in winter time from under the snow. Mammoth skeleton:

In terms of skeletal structure, the mammoth bears a significant resemblance to the living one. Indian elephant. Huge mammoth tusks, up to 4 m in length, weighing up to 100 kg, were located in the upper jaw, protruded forward, curved upward and diverged to the sides. Mammoth and mastodon are another extinct gigantic proboscis mammal:

It is interesting that as they wore out, the mammoth’s teeth (like those of modern elephants) were replaced with new ones, and such a change could take place up to 6 times during its life. Monument to the mammoth in Salekhard:

Most known species mammoths - woolly mammoth (lat. Mammuthus primigenius). It appeared in Siberia 200-300 thousand years ago, from where it spread to Europe and North America.

The woolly mammoth is the most exotic animal of the Ice Age and is its symbol. Real giants, mammoths at the withers reached 3.5 m and weighed 4-6 tons. Mammoths were protected from the cold by thick, long hair 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 a large part of North America . Due to climate warming, the habitats of mammoths - the tundra-steppe - have decreased. Mammoths migrated to the north of the continent and for the last 9-10 thousand years they 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 became extinct about 3,500 years ago.

In winter, the coarse wool of the mammoth consisted of hair 90 cm long. A layer of fat about 10 cm thick served as additional thermal insulation.

Mammoths are herbivorous; they ate mainly herbaceous plants (cereals, sedges, forbs), small shrubs (dwarf birch, willow), tree shoots and moss. In winter, in order to feed themselves, in search of food, they raked snow with their forelimbs and extremely developed upper incisors - tusks, the length of which in large males was more than 4 meters, and they weighed about 100 kg. Mammoth teeth were well adapted for grinding rough food. Each of the 4 teeth of a mammoth changed five times during its life. A mammoth ate 200-300 kg of vegetation per day, that is, he had to eat 18-20 hours a day and constantly move around in search of new pastures.

It is assumed that living mammoths were colored black or dark brown. Because they had small ears and short trunks (compared to modern elephants), the woolly mammoth was adapted to life in cold climates.

Thanks to mammoths, the rulers of the northern polar steppes and tundras, ancient man survived harsh conditions: they gave him food and clothing, shelter, shelter from the cold. Thus, mammoth meat, subcutaneous and abdominal fat were used for nutrition; for clothing - skins, sinews, wool; for the manufacture of dwellings, tools, hunting equipment and equipment and crafts - tusks and bones.

During the Ice Age, the woolly mammoth was the largest animal in the Eurasian expanses.

It is assumed that woolly mammoths lived in groups of 2-9 individuals and were led by older females.

The life expectancy of mammoths was approximately the same as that of modern elephants, i.e. no more than 60–65 years.

“By its nature, the mammoth is a meek and peace-loving animal, and affectionate towards people. When meeting a person, the mammoth not only does not attack him, but even clings and fawns over the person” (from the notes of Tobolsk local historian P. Gorodtsov, 19th century).

The largest number of mammoth bones are found in Siberia. Giant mammoth cemetery - New Siberian Islands. In the last century, up to 20 tons of elephant tusks were mined there annually. Monument to mammoths in Khanty-Mansiysk:

In Yakutia there is an auction where you can buy the remains of mammoths. The approximate price of a kilogram of mammoth tusk is $200.

Unique finds.

Adams' Mammoth

The world's first mammoth was found in 1799 in the lower reaches of the Lena River by hunter O. Shumakhov, who reached the Lena River delta in search of mammoth tusks. The huge block of frozen earth and ice where he found the mammoth tusk completely thawed only in the summer of 1804. In 1806, M. Adams, an associate professor of zoology at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, who was passing through Yakutsk, learned about the find. Having gone to the place, he discovered the skeleton of a mammoth, eaten wild animals and dogs. The skin was preserved on the mammoth’s head; one ear, dried 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 St. Petersburg that same year. So, in 1808, for the first time in the world, a complete skeleton of a mammoth was mounted - Adams' mammoth. Currently, he, like the baby mammoth Dima, is on display at the museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

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 in the Allaikhovsky ulus), a huge accumulation of bone remains was found that belonged to approximately 160 mammoths that lived 13 thousand years ago. Nearby was the dwelling of ancient hunters. According to the quantity and quality of preserved fragments of mammoth bodies Berelekh Cemetery- the largest in the world. It indicates a massive death of weakened and snow-drifted animals.

Currently, paleontological materials from the Berelekh cemetery are stored at the Institute of Geology of Diamond and Precious Metals of the SB RAS in Yakutsk.

Shandri Mammoth

In 1971, D. Kuzmin discovered the skeleton of a mammoth that lived 41 thousand years ago on the right bank of the Shandrin River, which flows into the channel of the Indigirka River delta. Inside the skeleton was a frozen lump of entrails. Plant remains consisting of herbs, branches, shrubs, and seeds were found in the gastrointestinal tract. So, thanks to this, one of the five unique remains of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract of mammoths (section size 70x35 cm), it was possible to determine the diet of the animal. The mammoth was a large male, 60 years old, and apparently died from old age and physical exhaustion. The skeleton of the Shandrin mammoth is located at the Institute of History and Philosophy of the SB RAS.

Mammoth Dima

In 1977, a well-preserved 7-8 month old mammoth calf was discovered in the Kolyma River basin. It was a touching and sad sight for the prospectors who discovered the baby mammoth Dima (he was named after the spring of the same name, in the valley of which he was found): he was lying on his side with mournfully outstretched legs, with closed pelvises and a slightly crumpled trunk.

The find immediately became a world sensation due to its excellent preservation and possible reason death of a baby mammoth. The poet Stepan Shchipachev composed a touching poem about a baby mammoth who had fallen behind his mammoth mother, and an animated film was made about the unfortunate baby 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 remaining parts of the corpse were excavated. The best preserved head is with tusks, with most of skin, left ear and eye socket, as well as the left front leg, consisting of the forearm and with muscles and tendons. Of the remaining parts, cervical and thoracic vertebrae, part of the ribs, shoulder blades, the right humerus, part of the viscera, and wool were found. According to radiocarbon dating, the mammoth lived 18 thousand years ago. The male, about 3 m tall at the withers and weighing 4 - 5 tons, died at the age of 40 - 50 years (for comparison: the average life expectancy of modern elephants is 60 - 70 years), probably after falling into a pit. Currently, anyone can see a model of the mammoth’s head in the Mammoth Museum of the Federal State Scientific Institution “Institute of Applied Ecology of the North” in Yakutsk.

Baby mammoth Lyuba

In Siberia, the perfectly preserved remains of a mammoth that died approximately 40 thousand years ago were found. Paleontologists are about to make a series of important discoveries. For example, how could this species survive in such harsh climatic conditions, in permafrost.

The mammoth that died in the Siberian tundra was approximately 1 month old. They called him Any. It remained buried for thousands of years under a thick layer of ice. The body is so well preserved that scientists now hope to extract and analyze its DNA to finally understand what caused the extinction of this species 10 thousand years ago.

Mammoth Museum

On the territory of Yakutia, in rock strata frozen hundreds of meters, many unique finds were found - bone remains, whole corpses of mammoths and other fossil animals - for example, in 1968 the remains of the Selerikan horse were discovered, in 1971 - the Mylakhchinsky bison with remains of soft tissues and wool, in 1972 - the skeleton of the Churapcha rhinoceros with remains of skin and wool and others. To study and exhibit them, the world's only Mammoth Museum, Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, was created in Yakutsk in 1991. The museum's collection contains more than 2,000 bone remains of large animals of the mammoth fauna. So, here you can see 3 fully restored skeletons of a mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros and a bison, a mummy of a wild horse, part of a mammoth skin and other interesting finds.

The unique exhibits of the museum - the remains of mammoths and mammoth fauna as unique prehistoric relics - have been declared a national treasure of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Thanks to the many years of efforts of Yakut scientists, the world got an idea of mammoth fauna Ice Age, Currently, the Mammoth Museum is very popular both among the local population and visiting Russian and foreign guests.

In recent years, the museum, together with Kinki University (Japan), the International Science and Technology Center (Moscow), and the French agency La Paz, has been working on the implementation of two large international projects on the study of macro- and microorganisms extracted from permafrost, and the construction of the World Museum mammoth and permafrost in Yakutsk. The author of the project is architect Thomas Lizer (USA). According to the project, this will be a unique open-air museum complex, reflecting the era of mammoths - the giants of the cold plains of ancient Yakutia.