Scientists have named the cause of the extinction of mammoths – Sight

The last mammoths in the world, living on the coast of Alaska and the islands in the Chukchi Sea, have died not as a result of degeneration or hunting them human, but because of the disappearance of sources of fresh water on the retreat and the melting of glaciers, according to the magazine PNAS.

«Our research uncovered a terrifying situation in which these mammoths lived. What happened to the water on these islands, clearly indicating why they were in a hopeless situation and become extinct. All this emphasizes that water scarcity is rarely viewed as a likely cause of extinction, and that we underestimate the vulnerability of the fauna of small islands to climate change even in the absence of people, “- RIA” Novosti “words of Matthew Wooller of the University of Alaska in Feyrbenkse (USA).

At the moment, there is no consensus on the causes of extinction of Ice Age megafauna. Some scientists believe that mammoths, woolly rhinos become extinct solely because of climate change, while others stick to paleontologists hypothesis equal “contribution” of man and climate in the disappearance of large animals in Asia and America.

More recently, paleontologists have found in Siberia “milk tusks” of several mammoths, traces of which have shown unequivocally that the extinction of these giants, who lived on the Taimyr Peninsula in eastern Siberia, people were involved hunters.

But apparently, this process took place in different parts of the world, even relatively close to each other for different reasons – Wooller and his colleagues managed to find traces of that mammoths became extinct in Alaska for climatic reasons, studying the different traces of their stay on the island of St. Paul, where these giants lasted until the time of the ancient Egyptians and Minoans and became extinct about 5.6 thousand. years ago.

As the scientists explain, the existence of such a large animal does not pass in vain for the flora and fauna of the ecosystem where they live. For example, the mammoth feces eat certain fungi, the spores of which today are found only in the habitats of elephants in Africa and Asia, and species composition of the vegetation changes when large animals appear or disappear.

All these things, according to Wooller well “imprinted” in the sediments in the ancient lakes that existed in the days of mammoths. Using soil samples from one such pond at St. Paul Island, the authors calculated the time of the extinction of mammoths, using several different methods and criteria – radiocarbon analysis of spores of fungi, an analysis of their DNA, and changes in species composition of plant pollen and the bones of other animals.

All of these things pointed to the same date of the extinction of mammoths -. 5.6 thousand years ago, plus or minus 100 years, which the authors considered to be “the most precise dating of extinction in the history of mankind.” This date, according to them, spoke about the tragic history of the disappearance of mammoths.

The fact is that on the same spot, in fact, ends the history of the lake, the former, as scientists believe, one of the few sources of fresh water on the island of St. Paul. The reason for his disappearance, apparently, was the climate, but the mammoths themselves hastened its destruction and drying, excavating soil from the banks of reservoirs, where there were supposedly the last large plants of the island.

As a result, the lake quickly turned into a puddle of mud, which was impossible to drink, and the vegetation cover that protected the water from evaporation, disappeared. This led to the disappearance of the last mammoth America and possibly the Earth.