The woolly mammoth lived over half a million years ago, but became extinct 4,000 years ago after a slow decline in numbers. We are able to study the reason for the mass extinction of these beasts through different proxy methods, such as tree rings, pollen and sediment preserves and archaeological evidence, to understand the demise of what was once a highly successful species.
Archaeological evidence makes it clear that the woolly mammoth was well adapted to its ice-age environment. Cave paintings from the early modern human being in the caves of Southern France provide a representation of the woolly mammoth’s appearance. Their long, arched tusks provided means to dig for roots and tubers in the frozen ground, and their cheek-teeth with up …show more content…
From these records, analysis of the timeline of mammoth extinction can be constructed, displaying the pattern and rapid timing of where this extinction took place. Finds of mammoth remains present evidence that 13,000 years ago, the mammoths were recorded to be in Denmark and Sweden. At 10,000 years ago, these records then became isolated to Siberia, before just 4,000 years ago a rapid decline in mammoth numbers saw the last mammoths to belong to the small islands found in the Arctic Ocean, north of Siberia.1 Glacial lake sediment holds the evidence to past climatic conditions by radio-carbon dating the fossils and pollen particles preserved in the sediment and silt. Glacial evidence found in a kettle-hole provided a detailed picture of the final years of the mammoth in Western Europe. The sediment gave knowledge to suggest that the full-glacial episode of the last cold stage was not the resulting factor that killed off the mammoths in Western Europe. Carbon dating dated these remains to 12,000 years bp, extending its known occurrence there by around 5,000 years, and proving the mammoths returned here in the late-glacial before their ultimate extinction.4 The rapid decline in mammoth numbers may only be due to increasing climate causing loss of habitat and ultimately leading to extinction, but records indicate human beings may have dealt the final …show more content…
Where the melting glaciers of North America around 14,000 years ago would have led to an ice-free corridor over to Eastern Asia. The first Paleo-Indians then settled. This then leads to looking at archaeological evidence of humans and mammoths being found in the same place, enforcing a view that the mammoths, in their small numbers, were now having to compete with humans. By looking at mammoth tusks, evidence of hunting can be found, which may draw a correlation between the extinction of 30 large mammal species in this area of North America in a short period of 10,000-11,000 years ago.1 The woolly mammoth being one. In geomorphology records, the 1998 draining of St. Mary reservoir in Alberta, Canada, revealed the wide and ancient riverbed below. The riverbed contained the tracks and bones of mammoths, among other mammal remains. The bones were dated back to 13,000 years bp. Other archaeological evidence consisting of spear heads and horse blood was found in the river bed, indicating the presence of human hunters and therefore re-enforcing the mammoths struggle to exist alongside humans.5
Although the woolly mammoth would have been a sacred animal to the human hunters; where every part would have been used, from the meat used for protein and fat, and the hide and bone fulfilling purposes of warmth and weapon use.6 The hunters may well have been unknowingly helping the process of extinction that climate