Posted on 02/28/2014 12:56:27 PM PST by fishtank
Wooly Mammoth Mystery Finally Solved?
by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. *
Researchers claim to potentially have solved the mystery of the wooly mammoth’s mass extinction.1 After drilling permafrost cores in Alaska, Canada, and northern Russia, a team led by Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen analyzed DNA remnants of Arctic vegetation within those cores. Based upon their analysis of the cores, they concluded that edible plants called forbs (which include sagebrush, yarrow, and mums) were once much more abundant upon the Arctic steppes. Furthermore, the stomach contents within mammoth and other animal carcasses seem to indicate that the mammoths preferred these forbs. The scientists theorize that an “invasion” by grasses crowded out the forbs, greatly reducing the amount of the mammoths’ preferred foods. But is this really an adequate explanation? Researchers have long assumed that mammoths did eat grasses, as do modern-day elephants. Yet, even if the mammoths preferred forbs, they could still have presumably subsisted on a grass-rich diet.
This is only the latest of many theories offered to explain the wooly mammoth’s extinction. As recently as 2013, scientists attributed the animal’s disappearance to a warming climate.2
Not only is the extinction of the wooly mammoth difficult for secular scientists to explain, but perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the creature’s past presence in large numbers in Siberia and other places is also problematic. In secular thinking, we are now living within a warm, relatively short “interglacial” period that separates longer, colder “glacials” or ice ages. Yet even in today’s supposedly warmer climate, the long winters in Siberia are extremely cold, with temperatures often reaching -40°C or lower!3 How could even the wooly mammoths have tolerated such extremely cold temperatures?
Numbering in the millions, the mammoth herds were too numerous and slow-moving to travel to warmer regions during the winter.4 And even if they could have migrated during winters and returned to Siberia in the summers, the warmer months would also have threatened them, as the sun would have melted the top layers of permafrost and created treacherous bogs for the large beasts to navigate.
It stands to reason that Siberia’s past climate must have actually been warmer than it is today, with an absence of permafrost. However, this presents an additional problem for secular, uniformitarian theories that assume the exact opposite—a colder climate prior to what they would consider our current warmer “interglacial.”
... more at link ...
Article posted on February 28, 2014.
The atlatl is quite efficient.
But I dont think that was the decisive tool.
I think the root problem is that people were way smarter predators than anything these beasts had to deal with before, and their reproduction rate just wasn’t up to balancing the increased mortality.
Same deal with the extinction of large beasts in North America. Better predators showed up and hunted them out.
The same thing happened, already in historical times, to the giant moa birds of New Zealand.
By that logic why aren’t African and Indian elephants extinct too? Wouldn’t they also be easy prey?
Sheez! That’s easy. The evil republicans cut off subsidies for wool. No more wooly mammoths.
Who knows ? The best reason for the killed-off-by-humans hypothesis is that the timing works.
Possibly the mammoth population was living much closer to the edge, in terms of food supply, than the African and Indian animals, which live in relative abundance. Maybe the mammoths were relatively scarce due to their environment and needed large territories and were thus easier to hunt out. Maybe in Africa and Asia there were lots of other animals to hunt, most of them easier prey than elephants (And this is true; pre firearms in Africa elephant hunting just wasn’t done. “White hunters” were often asked by the natives to thin elephant herds because hunting them was very dangerous using native weapons).
I'm glad they designated the temperature as Celsius or it might have been confusing. :{)
Mums the word.
As opposed to the sophisticated weapons used on Mammoths?
As opposed to, if you live in Africa, why risk your life hunting elephants when you have a easier ways to make a living.
If you lived in ancient Siberia, maybe there wasn’t an easier way to make a living.
Scientist say they have solved the mystery of the Wooly Mammoth’s extinction, definitely, pretty sure, kind of,well maybe, or not.
“...with temperatures often reaching -40°C or lower!”
Thanks for the reminder. -40 is where both scales agree.
A long time ago, when the Earth was green,
There were more kinds of animals than you have ever seen,
They'd roam around free while the Earth was bein' born,
And the lovliest of all was the unicorn.
Hasn’t it been scientifically established that mammoths lived on Wrangle Island until about 4,000-5,000 years ago? How does this theory account for that?
Of course none of that explains how many of them were effectively flash frozen.
Same deal with the extinction of large beasts in North America. Better predators showed up and hunted them out.
I agree about the atlatl. I listened to a discussion among some modern big game hunters regarding ancient man and the use of the atlatl on large animals like the mammoth. The consensus was it would take many multiple hits on one animal to bring it down all the while dealing with the rest of the herd trying to protect the injured animal.(Assuming mammoths displayed the same type of behavior as modern African elephants)
Probably a combination of things led to their extinction including the loss of their food supply.
The same thing happened, already in historical times, to the giant moa birds of New Zealand.
Ah yes the moa. Flightless birds were pretty well on the short end once man showed up. Even if man couldn't kill off all the adults the eggs would have been easy pickings.
Have you checked the contents of Michele Obama’s stomach?
That might give you a close as to the fate of the Mammoths.
Too many hamburgers and fries, I’ll bet.
Elephants and pre-humans existed in Africa for millions of years. Humans became lethal to elephants very gradually, giving elephants time to evolve a healthy fear of humans and strategies to avoid and evade them.
Humans arrived in the Americas relatively in a blink of an eye, fully lethal. The American elephant cousins didn’t have time to adapt.
That theory has some merit.
It doesn’t necessarily mean lots of hits for an immediate kill. Just enough to be incapacitating and cause eventual collapse, maybe days later. One good abdominal puncture will probably do. Some of mans advantages as a predatory animal are incredible endurance, attention span and ability to track, compared to most mammals.
And perhaps part of the mammoths problems were that they didn’t live in large herds, due to scarcity.
I don’t get his question about how wooly mammoths could have tolerated “such extremely cold temperatures” as -40. Animals live in Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska, and Canada in temperatures like that now, don’t they?
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