Woolly mammoth. The most interesting facts about mammoths Berelekh Mammoth Cemetery

During the Ice Age, Siberia was inhabited by very unusual species animals. Many of them are no longer on Earth. The largest of them was the mammoth. The largest individuals reached 4-4.5 meters in height, and their tusks up to 3.5 meters long weighed 110-130 kilograms. Fossil remains of mammoths were discovered in the northern regions of Europe, Asia, America and a little further south - at the latitude of the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal. The death and burial of mammoths occurred 44-26 thousand years ago, as evidenced by radiocarbon dating and the results of palynological analysis of numerous burials of their remains.

A truly inexhaustible “warehouse” of mammoth bones is Siberia. Giant mammoth cemetery - New Siberian Islands. In the last century, from 8 to 20 tons of elephant tusks were mined there annually. According to old commercial reports, before the First World War, the export of tusks from North-Eastern Siberia was 32 tons per year, which corresponds to approximately 220 pairs of tusks.

It is believed that over the course of 200 years, tusks from approximately 50 thousand mammoths were exported from Siberia. A kilogram of good tusk goes abroad for $100; Japanese companies are now offering from 150 to 300 thousand dollars for a naked mammoth skeleton. When it was sent to a trade exhibition in London in 1979, a Magadan mammoth calf was insured for 10 million rubles. In a scientific sense, he had no value at all...

In 1914, on Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island (New Siberian Islands), industrialist Konstantin Vollosovich dug up a whole, well-preserved mammoth skeleton. He offered the Russian Academy of Sciences to buy the find from him. He was refused, citing (as always) a lack of money: an expedition to find another mammoth had just been paid for.
Count Stenbock-Fermor paid Wollosovich's expenses and donated his acquisition to France. For a whole skeleton and four feet covered in skin and meat, pieces of skin, the donor received the Order of the Legion of Honor. This is how the only well-preserved mammoth exhibit appeared outside of Russia.

Since the remains of mammoths are located in giant natural refrigerators - in layers of so-called permafrost, they have reached us in good condition. 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. The most famous specimen still has a stomach and mouth full of grass and branches! It is said that there are still surviving examples of woolly elephants in Siberia...

The unanimous opinion of experts is this: in reality, thousands of living individuals are needed to maintain a population. They would not go unnoticed... However, there are other messages.

There is a legend that in 1581 the warriors of the famous conqueror of Siberia Ermak saw huge hairy elephants in the dense taiga. Experts are still at a loss: who did the glorious warriors see? After all, ordinary elephants were already known in those days: they were found in the courts of governors and in the royal menagerie. Since then, the legend of living mammoths has lived...

In 1962, a Yakut hunter told geologist Vladimir Pushkarev that before the revolution, fishermen had repeatedly seen huge hairy animals “with big nose and fangs." Ten years ago, this hunter himself discovered traces unknown to him “the size of a basin.” There is a story of two Russian hunters who, in 1920, came across traces of a giant beast at the edge of the forest. This happened between the Chistaya and Tasa rivers (the area between the Ob and Yenisei). The oval-shaped tracks were about 70 cm long and about 40 cm wide. The creature placed its front legs four meters from its hind legs.

The stunned hunters followed the tracks and a few days later they met two monsters. They watched the giants from a distance of about three hundred meters. The animals had curved white tusks, brown coloring, and long hair. These are elephants in fur coats. They moved slowly. One of the last press reports that Russian geologists in Siberia saw living mammoths appeared in 1978. “It was the summer of 1978,” recalls prospector foreman S.I. Belyaev, “our team was panning for gold on one of the nameless tributaries of the Indigirka River. At the height of the season, an interesting incident occurred. In the pre-dawn hour, when the sun had not yet risen, a dull stomp was suddenly heard near the parking lot. Miners sleep a little. Jumping to their feet, they stared at each other in surprise with a silent question: “What is this?” As if in response, a splash of water was heard from the river. We grabbed our guns and began to stealthily make our way in that direction. When we rounded the rocky ledge, an incredible picture was presented to our eyes. In the shallow river water there were about a dozen God knows where they came from... mammoths. Huge, shaggy animals slowly drank the cold water. For about half an hour we looked at these fabulous giants, spellbound. And they, having quenched their thirst, decorously, one after another, went deep into the forest thicket...”

What if, by some miracle, these ancient animals, despite everything, in hidden, deserted places, are alive to this day?

“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).

Among the animals that disappeared before human eyes, special place occupied by a mammoth. And the point here is not that this is the largest land mammal that people have encountered. It is still not completely clear why this Siberian giant died so unexpectedly. Scientists do not hesitate to classify the mammoth as a long-extinct animal. And they are easy to understand. None of the biologists have yet managed to bring back the skin of a “freshly slaughtered” animal from northern expeditions. Therefore, it does not exist. For scientists, the only question is: as a result of what cataclysms did this huge northern elephant, which roamed the vast expanses of Siberia 10-15 thousand years ago, disappear from the face of the earth?

If you look through old history textbooks, you will find out that it turns out that Stone Age people were the culprits behind the extinction of this giant. At one time, there was a widespread hypothesis about the amazing dexterity of primitive hunters who specialized exclusively in eating mammoths. They drove this powerful beast into traps and mercilessly destroyed it.

Proof of this assumption was the fact that mammoth bones were found at almost all ancient sites. Sometimes they even dug up the huts of ancient people, made from the skulls and tusks of the poor fellow. True, even looking at the magnificent fresco on the wall of the Historical Museum, depicting the ease with which northern elephants are killed by large stones, you can hardly believe in the success of such a hunt. But at the end of the twentieth century, the ancient hunters were rehabilitated. Academician Nikolai Shilo did this. He put forward a theory that explains the death of not only mammoths, but also other inhabitants of the North: the Arctic yak, saiga antelope and woolly rhinoceros. 10,000 years ago, North America and most of Eurasia were a single continent, welded together by a thick layer of floating ice, covered with so-called loess - dust particles. Under a cloudless sky and a never-setting sun, the loess was completely covered with thick grass. Severe winters with little snow did not prevent mammoths from receiving large quantities of frozen grass, and long Thick hair, thick undercoat and fat reserves helped them cope even with severe frosts.

But the climate changed - it became more humid. The continent on the floating ice disappeared. The thin crust of loess was washed away by summer rains, and the outskirts of Siberia turned from northern steppes into the swampy tundra. Mammoths turned out to be unadapted to a humid climate: they fell into swamps, their warm undercoat got wet in the rain, and a thick layer of snow that fell in winter did not allow them to reach the sparse tundra vegetation. Therefore, mammoths simply physically could not survive to our time.

But here's what's strange. As if to spite scientists, fresh remains of mammoths continue to be found in Siberia.

In 1977, a perfectly preserved seven-month-old mammoth calf was discovered on the Krigilyakh River. A little later, in the Magadan region, they found the Enmynville mammoth, or more precisely, its one hind leg. But what a leg it was! It was amazingly fresh and did not retain a trace of rotting. These remains allowed scientists L. Gorbachev and S. Zadalsky from the Institute biological problems Sever studied in detail not only the hair of the mammoth, but also the structural features of the skin, even the content of the sweat and sebaceous glands. And it turned out that mammoths had powerful hair, abundantly lubricated with fat, so climate change could not lead to the complete destruction of these animals.

A change in diet also could not be fatal for the “northern elephant”. Back in 1901, on the Berezovka River, a tributary of the Kolyma, the corpse of a mammoth was found and studied in detail by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In the stomach of the animal, scientists discovered the remains of plants characteristic of modern floodplain meadows of the lower reaches of the Lena River.

New information allows us to take cases of encounters between people and mammoths more seriously. These meetings began a long time ago. Travelers from many countries who visited Muscovy and Siberia, who were not even aware of the theories of modern biologists, stubbornly wrote about the existence of mammoths. For example, the Chinese geographer Sima Qian in his historical notes (188-155 BC) writes: “... among the animals there are... huge wild boars, northern elephants with bristles and northern rhinoceroses.” Herberstein, the ambassador of the Austrian Emperor Sigismund, who visited Rus' in the middle of the 16th century, wrote in his “Notes on Muscovy”: “In Siberia ... there are a great variety of birds and various animals, such as, for example, sables, martens, beavers, stoats, squirrels ...Also, the weight. In the same way, polar bears, hares...”

Tobolsk local historian P. Gorodtsov talks about the mysterious beast “weight” in his essay “A Trip to the Salym Territory,” published in 1911. It turns out that the Kolyma Khanty were familiar with strange beast"all". This “monster” was covered with thick, long hair and had horns. Sometimes the “vesi” started such a fuss among themselves that the ice on the lake broke with a terrible roar.

Here is another very interesting evidence. During Ermak’s famous campaign in Siberia, in the dense taiga, his warriors saw huge hairy elephants. Experts are still at a loss: who did the vigilantes meet? After all, real elephants were already known in Rus' at that time. They were kept not only in the royal menagerie, but also in the courts of some governors.

Now let's turn to another layer of information - to the legends preserved by local residents. The Ob Ugrians and Siberian Tatars were confident in the existence of the northern giant and described it in detail to P. Gorodtsov exactly as stated in the quote placed at the beginning of the article.

This “extinct” giant was also seen in the 20th century. Western Siberia. Small lake Leusha. After the celebration of Trinity Day, boys and girls returned in wooden boats, the accordion played. And suddenly, 300 meters from them, a huge hairy carcass rises from the water. One of the men shouted: “Mammoth!” The boats huddled together, and people watched in fear as a three-meter carcass appeared above the water and swayed on the waves for several moments. Then the hairy body dived and disappeared into the abyss.

There is a lot of such evidence. For example, the famous researcher of extinct animals, Maya Bykova, talked about a pilot who saw a mammoth in Yakutia in the 40s. Moreover, the latter also plunged into the water and swam away across the surface of the lake.

It’s not only in Siberia that you can find a mammoth. In 1899, the American magazine McClure's Magazine published a note about a meeting with a mammoth in Alaska. When its author H. Tukeman traveled in 1890 along the St. Michael and Yukon rivers, he lived for a long time in one small Indian tribe and heard a lot there interesting stories from Old Injun Joe. One day Joe saw a picture of an elephant in a book. He became excited and said that he had met this animal on the Porcupine River. Here in the mountains there was a country that the Indians called Ti-Kai-Koya (trace of the devil). Joe and his son went to shoot beavers. After long journey through the mountains they came out into a vast valley overgrown with trees with a large lake in the middle. In two days the Indians made a raft and crossed a lake as long as a river. It was there that Joe saw a huge animal that resembled an elephant: “He was pouring water on himself from his long nose, and in front of his head protruded two teeth, each ten guns long, curved and sparkling white in the sun. Its fur was black and sparkling and hung on its sides like tufts of weeds on the branches after a flood... But then it lay in the water, and the waves running through the reeds reached our armpits, such was the splash.”

And yet where could such huge animals hide? Let's try to figure it out. The climate in Siberia has changed. You won't find food in the coniferous taiga. Another thing is along river valleys or near lakes. True, rich water meadows give way here to impassable swamps, and the most convenient way to get to them is by water. What prevents a mammoth from doing this? Why shouldn't he switch to an amphibian lifestyle? He should be able to swim, and not bad. Here we can rely not only on legends, but also on scientific facts. As you know, the closest relatives of mammoths are elephants. And just recently it turned out that these giants are excellent swimmers. They not only love to swim in shallow water, but also swim several tens of kilometers into the sea!

But if elephants not only love to swim, but also swim many kilometers into the sea, then why shouldn’t mammoths be able to do this too? After all, they are the closest relatives of elephants. Who are their distant relatives? How do you think? The famous sea sirens are animals transformed in myths into sweet-voiced female mermaids. They descended from terrestrial proboscis animals and retained characteristics common to elephants: mammary glands, replacement of molars throughout life, and tusk-like incisors.

It turns out that sirens aren't the only ones with elephant characteristics. Elephants also retained some properties characteristic of marine animals. More recently, biologists have discovered that they are capable of emitting infrasounds at frequencies below the sensitivity threshold of the human ear and perceiving these sounds. Moreover, the organ of hearing in elephants is the vibrating frontal bones. Only sea animals, such as whales, have such abilities. For land animals this is unique property. Probably, in addition to this property, elephants and their relatives, mammoths, retained other qualities that facilitate their transition to an aquatic existence.

And one more argument in favor of the existence of mammoths in the North. This is a description of mysterious animals that live in the cold lakes of Siberia. The first to see a strange animal living in the Yakut Lake Labynkyr was geologist Viktor Tverdokhlebov. On July 30, 1953, he was lucky in a way that no other explorer of the unknown had been lucky for almost half a century. Being on a plateau rising on the surface of the lake, Victor observed “something” that barely rose above the surface of the water. From the dark gray carcass of the animal, swimming with heavy throws to the shore, they diverged in a triangle big waves.

The only question is, what did the geologist see? Most researchers of the unknown are sure that it was one of the varieties of waterfowl lizards that in some incomprehensible way survived to our time and for some reason chose the icy waters of the lake, where reptiles, as they say, were physiologically unable to live. Recently the MAI Kosmopoisk group visited the lake. The group members saw muddy, rippling footprints on the water. Found on the shore ice stalactites, formed as a result of water draining from a drying animal, one and a half meters wide and five meters long. Imagine, at least for a moment, a crocodile from which icicles are falling! Yes, poor fellow, if he found himself in such climatic conditions, in about twenty minutes he would turn into an ice log. But here's what's remarkable. In stories about unusual inhabitants of lakes, a similar description often appears: a long flexible neck, a body rising above the water. But maybe, in fact, it was not the long neck and body of a reptile plesiosaur, but a highly raised trunk and the head of a mammoth located behind it?

So, the mammoth, which disappeared ten thousand years ago after another sharp climate change, may not have disappeared at all, but, as Vladimir Vysotsky sings in one of his songs: “... dove and lay down on the ground.” He just wanted to survive. And, of course, he does not at all strive to be “located” and turned into meat.

Abstract of a series of articles

IN last years The 20th century began a real boom in mammoth science. If before this, discoveries of frozen mammoth corpses in Siberia (they are not found in other places) happened once every 20-30 years, now they occur almost every year. Especially for their excavation, preservation and study, the International Mammoth Committee was created in Geneva, with branches in Paris, St. Petersburg and Yakutsk. A series of publications on this topic will help amateurs and scientists keep abreast of the latest findings.

The cooling that began millions of years ago in the Northern Hemisphere caused changes in the flora and fauna. Huge feed resources open spaces contributed to the rapid development and prosperity of deer, roe deer, bison, and their movement to the north. New episode cold snaps in the second half of the Pleistocene had a noticeable impact on the species depletion of the animal world and the transformation of surviving species into cold-resistant forms. These include the “early” mammoth. Very rapid adaptive evolution is a completely unique phenomenon. The reasons for such rapid adaptation of the inhabitants of these harsh zones to little snow, although cold, winters are considered. Mammoths, as well as their “companions,” existed very successfully in steppe, forest-tundra and tundra landscapes. The woolly mammoth, whose homeland is considered to be northern Siberia, replaced the steppe mammoth. But at the end of the last one ice age mammoths disappeared.

About a million years ago, under the influence of cosmic and terrestrial causes, cooling began in the Northern Hemisphere. Snow caps grew on the mountain peaks, and tongues of glaciers descended into the valleys. Since a large amount of water settled in a crystalline state on the continent, the coastal level decreased, significant areas of the shelf were dried, and the outlines of the seas and oceans changed. Under the influence of the physical environment, plant and animal world. Growing in the Tertiary period at the latitude of Moscow, Novosibirsk and Yakutsk,

subtropical evergreen forests, were replaced by conifers and deciduous trees. Vast steppes began to appear in watershed areas. At the junction of the Pliocene and Anthropocene, the hipparion fauna, represented by the three-toed ancestors of horses - hipparions, the ancestors of mammoths - mastodons and saber-toothed cats - mahairods, became extinct. They were replaced by single-toed high-toothed horses, long-proboscis elephants with straight tusks - trogonterias and modern-type cats. Huge food resources of open spaces contributed to the rapid development and prosperity of deer, roe deer, antelope, aurochs, and bison. Following them, primitive humanoid creatures moved north from Africa and South Asia. In general, this Early Pleistocene fauna became the basis for the formation of the next mammoth group.

A new series of cooling events in the second half of the Pleistocene was accompanied by further development of glaciation and a decrease in ocean levels. Accordingly, in the Northern Hemisphere there was a noticeable depletion of species in the animal world and the transformation of surviving species into cold-resistant forms. These include the “early” mammoth, the Bactrian camel, the long-horned bison, the cave lion and the cave hyena. During this period, they reached their maximum size and biological flourishing, resembling the modern savanna in numbers. equatorial Africa. In the vastness Southern Siberia Schools of thousands of horses, bison, and donkeys grazed, herds of camels, mammoths, and deer passed by, and woolly rhinoceroses were often seen. During catastrophic spring floods and during crossings, hundreds and thousands of animals died, forming cemeteries of their bones in the sharp bends of the rivers.

Vereshchagin, 2008

How quickly could hairless trogontherians turn into woolly mammoths during climate cooling? An interesting observation on this topic was made by a participant in the hydrographic expedition of the Northern Arctic Ocean(1910-1915) N.I. Evgenov:

Evgenov, 2012, p. 252

The last ice age, which began 60-70 thousand years ago (Wurm in Europe, Valdai in Russia), left noticeable traces in the landscape, flora and fauna of the northern half of Eurasia. The late mammoth fauna existed in steppe and tundra-steppe conditions. With sea levels falling by 100-200 m, the archipelagos of Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, New Earth, The New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island were one with the mainland. A vast zone of frozen tundra-steppes stretched from Britain to Sakhalin, including the Russian Plain, the Yama Peninsula, Taimyr, Northern Yakutia and Chukotka.

Permafrost limited the existence of coniferous and deciduous forests only along river valleys and on the southern slopes of the mountains. From the margins of the glaciers, the winds carried loess dust deposited among the grass vegetation. In winter, severe frosts tore the surface of the earth with deep cracks. In the summer, these cracks were filled with water, which froze during the next cold snap and formed ice veins that went tens of meters deep. Living conditions were harsh, but with an abundance of grassy food, it was possible to live on hard soil. Moreover, the inhabitants of this harsh zone have long adapted to winters with little snow, albeit cold ones.

Yedomas are the remains of the Upper Pleistocene plain, in the thickness of which are the bones of mammoths. Currently, the edomas are being intensively destroyed under the influence of the Sun, the heat of oxbow lakes that melt ice veins, and rivers that wash away steep coastal cliffs. It is along the coastal cliffs that the Yedomas and Baijerakhs collect mammoth ivory. It is believed that the lakes, with their large heat reserves, reworked the former Pleistocene plain, lowering it by 12-15 meters. After all, 30-60% of the thickness of the Yedoma is ice. As a result of thawing, silty soil flows from the cliffs, carrying the bones of mammoths and their companions to the bottom of the lakes and forming redeposited deposits. Therefore, lakes are the second most important reservoir of remains of mammoth fauna.

Mammoths are extinct elephants, differing only in a few features from modern African and Indian elephants. In origin and morphology they are closer to the latter. At the same time, numerous attempts by geneticists to find out which of the modern elephants mammoths are genetically closest to have led to a curiosity - for some it turned out to be closer to Indian, for others - to African, and for others - even equidistant. The mistake was that for the research they took short pieces of mammoth DNA chains, extracted from tissues frozen in the permafrost for thousands of years, which is clearly not enough at this stage of development of gene research in systematics. Modern elephants live mainly in tropical forests and savannas, less often - in mountains and deserts. In contrast, mammoths were adapted to exist in steppe, forest-tundra and tundra landscapes, cold and temperate climates.

As already noted, mammoths belong to the genus Mammuthus (Brookes, 1828), which includes 4 or 6 species, depending on the opinion of systematic paleontologists. The mammoths were large in size - the height of the skeleton of adult male mammoths at the most convex point of the spine reaches 450 cm, for the woolly one 320-265 cm, and for the small species from the California Chanel Islands 200-180 cm. The most ancient representative of the genus was the steppe or trogontherian mammoth - M. trogontherii(Pohlig, 1886). It lived in the early Pleistocene of Eurasia and North America, where it is sometimes called the imperial elephant. The climate of that era (350-450 thousand years ago) in the middle latitudes was still moderately warm, and in the high latitudes it was moderate. In the extreme North-East, mixed deciduous forests grew, vast meadow-steppes and tundra-steppes stretched, where these animals, with massive, slightly curved tusks, measuring up to four or more meters, weighing up to 130 kg, grazed. But the ancestor of Trogontherium is considered to be the southern elephant, or Archdiscodon, the skeletons of which are in the museums of Stavropol, Rostov and St. Petersburg.

Steppe mammoths were poorly adapted to the cold, so at the end of the Middle Pleistocene in Eurasia it was replaced by the hero of our book, the woolly mammoth - M. Primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799), and in North America Colombian mammoth - M. columbi. At the end of the Pleistocene, the woolly, or, as it is also called, the Siberian mammoth, entered America through the Berengia Bridge, where it lived together with its Colombian brother until extinction.

The famous Russian paleontologist A.V. Sher (Sher, 1974) put forward the hypothesis that the homeland woolly mammoth is the north of Siberia, or more precisely - the Northeast, or Western Beringia. Based on verified geological data, the scientist showed that the most ancient remains (about 800 thousand years ago) of this type of mammoth are known from the Kolyma River valley, from where it subsequently spread to Europe and North America as the Ice Age intensified. So the name “Siberian mammoth” correctly reflects the origin of this species.

Mammoths disappeared at the end of the last ice age or at the beginning of the Holocene. The extinction of mammoths probably occurred gradually and not simultaneously in different parts their huge range. As living conditions worsened, the habitat of animals narrowed and was divided into small areas (refugia). The number of animals decreased, the fertility of females decreased and the mortality of young animals increased. It is very likely that mammoths died out earlier in Europe and somewhat later in North-East Siberia, where natural conditions did not change so dramatically. 3-4 thousand years ago, mammoths finally disappeared from the face of the Earth.

The latest absolute dates of the bones of these animals are as follows: Berelekh “cemetery” - 12.6 thousand years, Taimyr mammoth - 11.5 (about a dozen datings are known from Taimyr between 9 and 10 thousand years), Yuribey (Gydan) mammoth - 10, 0 thousand years. In the west of Chukotka, in the river valleys of the western coast of the Chaunskaya Bay, bones with an age of 8 thousand years were found, and on Wrangel Island - 4 thousand years old. Here, apparently, was the last population of short mammoths with obvious signs of degradation.

Why did mammoths become extinct? It is very doubtful that failures under the ice during crossings and into ice cracks, hunting of primitive man, acting separately, could lead to the complete disappearance of these giants. After all, mammoths lived on a vast territory of Eurasia and North America. However, the bulk of animals became extinct 10-12 thousand years ago. Biologists believe that the process of extinction of a species begins with a decrease in the fertility of the animal, the birth of predominantly males, and a slowdown in the rate of reproduction. Judging by archival data and old photographs from Yakut fairs, when harvesting mammoth ivory, male tusks always predominated. Of the dozen skeletons stored in Russian museums, only Novosibirsk has the skeleton of a mammoth on display.

The climatic boundary at the end of the last ice age (9-12 thousand years ago) was marked by a series of sharp temperature fluctuations that negatively affected the animal world of middle and northern latitudes. In place of the cold but dry steppes, swamp-tundra landscapes with abundant snow and crusty conditions began to develop. Under these conditions, specialization for dry cold turned out to be an evolutionary dead end and led to the extinction of not only the mammoth, but also many of its companions: the hairy rhinoceros, the horse, the bison, the cave lion, and the musk ox (in Eurasia). Primitive hunters only accelerated this process.

Word to Professor N.K. Vereshchagin:

Mammoths died in droves and in places where the role of primitive man was insignificant. In the tundra and forest-tundra of the Far North of Siberia, rivers reveal bone-bearing layers in places, bound by ice, stretching for tens of kilometers. These burials and deposits of bones are known as the “mammoth horizon.” They contain roughly broken bones of mammoths, rhinoceroses, horses, deer, bison, and sometimes whole carcasses of these animals. In the summer, as it thaws, the “mammoth horizon” emits a characteristic corpse-like odor. The broken bones of mammoths and other animals here bear no traces of the activity of primitive hunters and are not associated with Paleolithic sites. The ice broke them.

Vereshchagin, 2008

The ending follows

Additional Information to a series of articles

Yuri Burlakov decided to publish this interesting book here in the Encyclopedia. The book was written by him in collaboration with Alexei Tikhonov..K. Vereshchagin. Let this book become a monument to both him and Russian science about mammoths.

Burlakov Yuri Konstantinovich

Therefore, his magnificent essays appear on the pages of the Encyclopedia on behalf of the Information Department.

In 1959, Yuri Burlakov entered the geological faculty of Leningrad University, from which he graduated at the end of 1964 with a degree in surveyor-exploration geologist. During training and industrial practice took part in expeditions to the Pamirs (1961), Tien Shan (1962 and 1963), Chukotka (1964). By assignment he was assigned to the Verkhne-Indigirsk expedition of the Yakut Geological Department (Ust-Nera settlement, Oymyakon region of the YASSR. In 1990-1993 he worked in the newly formed Association of Polar Explorers (in 2002-2012 he was its vice president), in 1994-2002 - in the apparatus State Duma RF, assistant to the Deputy Chairman of the Duma A.N. Chilingarova. During this time, he took part in five sea expeditions to the Arctic archipelagos, the Northern Sea Route and North Pole. From 1991 to 2002 he annually participated in expeditions to the North Pole. In the fall of 1999, he took part in an experimental flight of the Mi-26 heavy helicopter to the North Pole without refueling. In the winter of 1995/1996 and 2001/2002 he visited Antarctica with the Metelitsa sports team and while organizing a flight to South Pole light aircraft An-3.

In 1997-2007, he annually participated in the summer searches and excavations of the remains of the mammoth fauna through the International Mammoth Committee (1997-2000 - in Taimyr, 2001-2005 - in the north of Yakutia, 2006-2007 - in Yamal). In total, between 1956 and 2007 he chalked up about 30 expeditions. Since 2001, I became interested in studying the history of exploration and development of the Russian Arctic. In recent years, he has published two books and about fifty articles in collections, magazines and newspapers on historical, geographical and paleontological topics. Participates in the work of the Polar Commission of the Moscow branch of the Russian Geographical Society, International Mammoth Committee (as consultant on paleogeography).

Hobbies include collecting minerals and polar philately. Loves dogs, dark beer and whitefish stroganina.

Tikhonov Alexey Nikolaevich

Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg), Head of the Zoological Museum. He has been working at ZIN since 1982. Total experience is 22 years, scientific experience is 14 years. He has 87 scientific works, including 4 monographs. Candidate of Biological Sciences. Member of the Triological Society (since 1982), Paleontological Society (since 1999), Commission on Recently Extinct Organisms (CXREO) (since 1998). Scientific Secretary of the Mammoth Committee of the St. Petersburg Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 1998). Supervisor international projects: “Lenfauna” (2000-2003), RFBR-INTAS JR97-1532 “Palaeogeography and archeology of the late Pleistocene and Holocene of Wrangel Island and Chukotka” (1999-2002).

Coordinator of the international project “Mammuthus” from the Russian side (1999-2004). Participant and leader of several international projects. Since 2002 - Chairman of the International Mammoth Committee. Since 1983 he worked together with N.K. Vereshchagin, behind him are dozens of expeditions to excavate mammoths and other Pleistocene animals, the author of several finds, including.

*****

site expresses deep gratitude Valery Igorevich Sements, - only with his editorial and organizational help was the series of articles “The World of the Mammoth” able to appear on the pages of the Encyclopedia.

Semenets Valery Igorevich

Born August 23, 1942, Muscovite. In 1966 he graduated from MINHIGP (Moscow Institute of Petrochemical and Gas Industry) named after. THEM. Gubkina. After graduating from the institute, he worked for more than 4 years at the Design Bureau working on rodless pumps (for oil production). In 1971 he moved to the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Drilling Equipment, where he worked until 1991. While working at the institute, he took an active part in the development of new screw downhole motors for drilling oil and gas wells. Has several copyright certificates and patents (foreign). In 1991, he headed a company organized with colleagues, focused on drilling horizontal wells. The construction of such wells was carried out in many oil regions of Russia. Business trips to various parts of the country left indelible impressions.

It is believed that the word “mammoth” comes from the phrase “mang ont”, which translated from Mansi means “earthen horn”. Then it spread to other languages ​​of the world, including English. These huge animals lived during the Pleistocene era. They inhabited the territory of Europe, North Asia and North America. Many researchers and archaeologists are still concerned with the mystery: how did these animals disappear from the face of the Earth?

Finds on the territory of Russia

The mammoth is an extinct species of animal. He is one of the closest relatives of the elephant. Scientists still argue about when mammoths became extinct. Drawings of these animals were found at excavations of ancient human sites dating back to the Stone Age. In the Voronezh region, archaeologists discovered mammoth bones. Ancient man used them to build his home. There is an assumption that they were also used as fuel.

In both Siberia and Alaska, researchers found mammoth corpses that were preserved by permafrost. In Oleg Kuvaev’s book entitled “Territory” you can even read a story about how one of the archaeologists knitted himself a sweater from the wool of an ancient animal. Scientists are finding remains of mammoth bones in the most unexpected places. Teeth and bones are often found in the Moscow region and even in the capital itself.

Appearance of animals

Mammoths were no larger in size than a modern elephant. However, their torso was more massive, and their limbs were shorter. The wool of mammoths was long, and at the top of their jaws they had menacing tusks up to 4 meters long. In winter, with the help of these tusks, like a bulldozer, the animals shoveled snow. Some subspecies of mammoths reached 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 Sergei Vartanyan. In 1993, on the territory of Wrangel Island, he discovered the remains of the so-called dwarf mammoths. Their height did not exceed 1.8 m. Researchers, using radiocarbon dating, came to the conclusion that mammoths could have lived here 3.7 thousand years ago.

Before this discovery, scientists believed that the last mammoths could have lived in Taimyr about 10 thousand years ago. The scientist’s find showed that these animals lived on Wrangel Island simultaneously with the flourishing of the Minoan culture on the territory of the island. Crete, Sumerian civilization, and the 11th dynasty of pharaohs in Egypt.

Basic Assumptions

Currently, there are two main hypotheses that explain why mammoths became extinct. According to the first, this happened due to worsening climatic conditions. Proponents of another hypothesis believe that the main cause was human activity - hunting. During the Upper Paleolithic era, people had already settled throughout the Earth. It was at this time that these huge animals were exterminated.

Main hypothesis

Research shows that mammoths began to die out as a species quite a long time ago - about 120 thousand years ago. The final disappearance occurred at the boundary between 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 ate became very rare. The meadows in the north gradually began to turn into forests and tundra. The result of the disappearance of this species was precisely the cooling due to the onset of the Ice Age.

Epidemic hypothesis

The mammoth is an extinct animal, but it is very difficult to say why this species disappeared from the face of the Earth. There is another theory: American scientists Preston Max and Ross McPhee hypothesized that the cause could be an epidemic. The people who then shared 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 clumsiness. When mammoths became infected, they went to water bodies and died there. Scientists have noticed that the largest number of burials of these animals are located 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 the mouths. Apparently, the moment when mammoths became extinct happened completely suddenly.

Invasion from Space

There is another hypothesis about why mammoths became extinct and when. It is believed that they could have been destroyed by a huge comet that collided with the Earth 13 thousand years ago. Because of this comet, researchers believe, people were forced to take up farming. Archaeologists discovered evidence of the collision in southern Turkey. The comet destroyed not only mammoths, but also other types of animals. It was because of this that people had to abandon hunting and gathering and switch to agricultural work.

Disappearance due to incest

There is another theory according to which the last mammoths remaining on the island. Wrangel, became extinct due to inbreeding. This term refers to inbreeding, which results in various deformities and genetic abnormalities. Thus, the extinction of these animals was due to a reduction in genetic diversity. On the territory of the island. There were about 500-1000 individuals living in Wrangel - at least that’s the estimate scientists give. And 500 individuals is minimal amount, which is necessary for the survival of any species of endangered animals.

The approximate time when mammoths, or rather the last of their representatives, became extinct is about 4 thousand years ago. However, shortly before the collapse of this population, another small group of animals was struggling to survive on what is now St. Paul's Island. It is located between the coast of Alaska and the Far East.

Why did mammoths become extinct?

In 3rd grade, students study this topic. Children need to have a very clear explanation of 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 mammoths were exterminated by hunters and that they could have disappeared from the face of the Earth due to worsening climatic conditions, homework Other theories can also be covered. For example, extinction due to a comet collision or due to inbreeding.

Arguments against hypotheses

Many archaeologists do not agree with the hypothesis that these animals disappeared due to hunting. For example, about 13 thousand years ago, ancient man had already mastered the entire space of Siberia. However, the time when the last mammoths died out in this territory was about 10 thousand years ago. Researchers note that hunting animals of this size was dangerous and impractical. In addition, installing traps in frozen ground probably took a lot of time and effort, especially considering that it was done using rather primitive tools.

However, other animals also disappeared from the planet at the same time that mammoths became extinct. The history of the world has evidence that during the same era, 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 oxen?

In addition, a wild horse, the tarpan, survived, which was exterminated only in the second half of the 19th century. Despite the abundance of hypotheses, it is believed that the most substantiated theory is the impact of the Ice Age. A study conducted by American scientist Dale Gharty confirms the climate hypothesis. The scientist came to the conclusion about its reliability after studying hundreds of remains of mammoths and people. Mammoths easily tolerated severe frost, but when it became warmer, the snow froze on their long fur, and this was a real disaster. The fur became an icy shell, which in no way protected 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 could have disappeared here due to bone disease - there was a decrease in calcium levels in local waters. The animals tried to find salt licks to make up for this deficiency, but this did not help them escape. An ancient man was guarding the weakened mammoths. Each of the hypotheses has the right to exist - after all, if none of the assumptions can be proven, then they cannot be refuted.

Many prehistoric animals arouse burning curiosity among our contemporaries. Take, for example, mammoths, images of which flash on the pages of zoology textbooks and television screens. Were they the progenitors of the current representatives of the fauna world, and for what reason did they die out? The answers to these questions concern many to this day. We will try to analyze how a mammoth differs from an elephant.

Definitions

Mammoth

Mammoth- an extinct species of mammals belonging to the elephant family and living in Quaternary period. They were distributed throughout modern Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. Numerous bones of these animals were found in sites of ancient people. In Alaska and Siberia, there are known cases of the discovery of mammoth corpses, preserved due to centuries of exposure to permafrost. Most representatives of the species became extinct about 10 thousand years ago during the Vistula Ice Age.

Elephant

Elephant- a representative of the family of mammals of the order Proboscidea. It is the largest land animal. The lifespan of an elephant is equal to that of a human and reaches an average of 70 years. This is the only representative of the fauna that cannot jump. Surprisingly, such a large and clumsy animal is capable of developing an impressive speed when running (about 30 km/h). In addition, elephants swim quite well. They can cover distances of tens of kilometers through water. At the same time, animals do not need prolonged sleep - four hours of rest a day is enough for them.

Comparison

Let's start with the fact that the average height of a prehistoric animal was about 2 meters, and its weight reached 900 kg. These indicators are quite comparable with the parameters of modern elephants. However, there were subspecies of mammoths that were about 4-6 meters tall and weighed up to 12 tons. The body, head and trunk of the animal were covered with thick hair of a light brown or yellowish-brown hue. The mammal's superbly developed sebaceous glands increased the thermal insulation properties of its fur. The 8-10 centimeter subcutaneous fat layer also perfectly protected the animal from the cold. The large, pointed head of the mammoth had huge curved tusks, the length of which sometimes reached 4 meters. It is believed that they were used not only for reasons of self-defense, but also to obtain food. With their help, animals stripped bark from trees, dug up food under a thick layer of ice, etc.

Another difference between a mammoth and an elephant is the size of the ears. In extinct animals they were small (about 30 cm in length) and tightly pressed to the head. Whereas an elephant's ears stick out to the side. Their average length is 180 cm. It is also worth noting that the trunk and tail of the mammoth were significantly shorter than those of the elephant. On the back of the prehistoric animal there was a hump in which fat reserves accumulated. Tall mammoth teeth with a large number of thin dentin-enamel plates were adapted for chewing coarse plant food. The animals' feet had very thick (almost horn-like) soles, reaching 50 cm in diameter. The feet of their modern relatives are particularly sensitive. Thanks to the thick “cushions” located on them, they move almost silently.

A comparative table will help you find a more complete answer to the question of what is the difference between a mammoth and an elephant.

Mammoth	Elephant
extinct animal	A modern representative of the fauna world
The height of some individuals reached 6 meters, and weight - up to 12 tons	The average height is about 2 meters, weight reaches 1 ton
The body is covered with thick hair	There is almost no hair on the skin
Pointed head, hump on the back	The head is more flattened, there is no hump
Huge curved tusks up to 4 m long	Tusks are several times shorter and less curved
Small ears, close to the head	Large protruding ears
Short tail and trunk	The trunk reaches the ground, the tail is long enough
Thick, almost horn-like soles of the feet	Feet are particularly sensitive

A significant portion of all the unique finds of mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, musk oxen, cave lions and other animals of a bygone era were discovered in Yakutia.

Map of mammoth finds

The first modified representative of the southern elephants was the steppe mammoth (height at withers - up to 5 m). The steppe mammoth in the early Pleistocene era 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 researcher of fossils and modern elephants V.E. Garutta, the word "mammoth" is closer to the Estonian "mammut" ( underground mole). The mammoth population appeared 1 - 2 million years ago. The heyday of the development of these giants occurred at the end of the Pleistocene (100 - 10 thousand years ago). On the territory of Yakutia, in the lower reaches of the interfluve between the Indigirka and Kolyma rivers, the skull of a mammoth that lived 49 thousand years ago was found. This is the oldest mammoth found in Yakutia.

Woolly Mammoth

Woolly Mammoth

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. 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 incisor 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 usually ate 200-300 kg of vegetation per day, i.e. he had to eat 18-20 hours a day and constantly move around in search of new pastures.

The hunt of ancient people for mammoth

Mammoth hunting

Ancient people were well adapted to the cold conditions of the Ice Age: they knew how to make fire, made tools, and buried their dead fellow tribesmen. 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 handicrafts - tusks and bones. Usually only the most experienced hunters (4 - 5 people) went to hunt mammoths. The leader chose a victim (a pregnant female or a lonely male), then spears were thrown at the right or left side of the mammoth. The pursuit of the wounded animal lasted 5 - 7 days. As the climate changed, mammoths moved further east and north. According to researchers, perhaps it was these migrations of animals that served as the impetus for the first hunters to move to northern Asia.

One of the hypotheses for the reasons for the disappearance of mammoths

To clarify the reasons for the disappearance of representatives of the mammoth fauna, many different hypotheses were put forward, including cosmic radiation, infectious diseases, global flood, natural disasters. Today, most scientists are inclined to believe that main reason Nevertheless, there was a rapid warming of the climate at the boundary of the Pleistocene and Holocene. About 10 thousand years ago, a kind of environmental catastrophe occurred on Earth: the climate suddenly began to “warm”, glaciers began to retreat and the area occupied by permafrost began to shrink. On the territory of 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, accustomed to living in cold climates, may have had their physiological metabolism disrupted during the warming period; they have become less resistant to infectious diseases, which has led to the degradation of their populations. Thus, organisms close to helminths were discovered 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 shapes). The onset of climate warming also greatly affected the regime atmospheric precipitation

and on vegetation.

More precipitation began to fall, and sea levels rose. The former Arctic steppe began to be replaced by tundra, and in Southern and Central Yakutia - by taiga. Neither the tundra nor the taiga could feed such large herbivores as mammoths. In winter, more snow began to fall, heavy snowfalls made it difficult for the mammoths to survive. And in the summer the soils thawed and became swampy. Animals accustomed to moving on relatively hard surfaces could not exist in swampy areas. All this led to their mass death. They died in snow drifts, suffered from lack of food, and drowned in thermokarst traps - caves. The formation of the Berelekh mammoth cemetery in Eastern Yakutia, where, according to scientists, about 160 individuals died, is probably associated with these factors.

About the history of mammoth finds

Bony remains of mammoths have been found in Yakutia, as well as throughout Russia, for a long time. The first information about such finds was reported by the Amsterdam burgomaster Witsen in 1692 in “Notes on a trip to North-Eastern Siberia" Somewhat later, in 1704, about Siberian mammoths wrote Izbrant Ides, who, on the orders of Peter I, traveled across all of Siberia to China. In particular, he was the first to collect quite interesting information that in Siberia, local residents on the banks of rivers and lakes from time to time found whole mammoth carcasses. In 1720, Peter the Great handed over to the governor of Siberia A.M. Cherkassky received an oral decree to 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.

Adams' Mammoth

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.

Adams' Mammoth in the mountains. Saint Petersburg

This remarkable find was later called the “Adams Mammoth.” One of the sensational finds that 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, and in places it was chewed by wolves.

The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, having received news of the unique discovery of a mammoth in Yakutia, immediately equipped an expedition led by zoologist O.F.

Hertz. As a result of excavations, an almost complete mammoth carcass was removed from the frozen soil in parts. The Berezovsky mammoth was of great scientific importance, because an almost complete mammoth carcass fell into the hands of researchers for the first time. Judging by the presence of remains of unchewed bunches of grass found in the mouth and teeth, the estimated time of death of the mammoth is the end of summer. Based on the results of research on the Berezovsky mammoth, several volumes of scientific papers were published. Berezovsky mammoth In 1910, the remains of a mammoth corpse, found in 1906 by A. Gorokhov on the Eterikan River, on Bol Island, were excavated. Lyakhovsky. This mammoth has an almost complete skeleton, fragments of soft tissue on the head and other parts of the body, as well as hair and remains of stomach contents. K.A. Vollosovich, who excavated the mammoth, sold it to Count A.V. Stenbock-Fermor, who in turn donated 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. In 1932, Komarov signed an appeal to the population of the country “On the Findings of Fossil Animals.” The appeal stated that the Academy of Sciences would issue

monetary reward

up to 1000 rubles.

Berelekh Mammoth Cemetery

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

Shandri Mammoth. Yakutia

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 of 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

At a mammoth excavation. Yakutia

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 (so 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 eyes closed and a slightly crumpled trunk.

Mammoth Dima

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.

Head of a Yukaghir mammoth. Yakutsk

The most well preserved are the head with tusks, with most of the skin, the 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.