Posted on 06/17/2004 8:07:34 PM PDT by ckilmer
Public release date: 16-Jun-2004 Contact: Marie Gilbert marie.gilbert@uaf.edu 907-474-7412 University of Alaska Fairbanks
Mammoths stranded on Bering Sea island delayed extinction Fossil is first record in the Americas of a mammoth population to have survived the Pleistocene Woolly mammoths stranded on Pribilofs delayed extinction Fossil is first record in the Americas of a mammoth population to have survived the Pleistocene St. Paul, one of the five islands in the Bering Sea Pribilofs, was home to mammoths that survived the extinctions that wiped out mainland and other Bering Sea island mammoth populations.
In an article in the June 17, 2004 edition of the journal Nature, R. Dale Guthrie, professor emeritus at the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says that when mammoths on the mainland of Alaska and other Bering Sea islands died out during the extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene era (about 11,000 years ago) those on the Pribilofs survived and new radiocarbon dates show how.
It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time and the mammoth tooth fossil that demonstrates Guthrie's point is the first record in the Americas of a mammoth population surviving the Pleistocene.
"During the last glacial maximum, when the sea level was about 120 meters below its current level, what are now the Pribilofs were simply uplands connected to the mainland by a large, flat plain," Guthrie said.
Using accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dating, bathymetric (water depth) plots, and sea transgression rates from the Bering Sea, Guthrie found that the mammoths became stranded on the Pribilofs about 13,000 years ago during the Holocene sea level rise after the last glacial maximum.
"Woolly mammoths became extinct on the mainland about 11,500 radiocarbon years ago," Guthrie said. At that time St. Lawrence Island was part of the Alaska mainland and presumably subject to the same extinction pressures as the mainland, but St. Paul had been an island for about 1,500 years.
"Radiocarbon-dated samples from St. Lawrence Island show similar dates of extinction to the mainland," Guthrie said, "but a sample from St. Paul dates to only 7,908 radiocarbon years old, into the mid-Holocene, which is much later."
The mammoths were able to survive on St. Paul so long as the island provided enough grazing forage and there were sufficient numbers of animals to prevent inbreeding pressures, Guthrie said, and at its present size of 36 square miles is too small to sustain a permanent mammoth population. St. Paul became that size about 5,000 years ago, so mammoths likely became extinct prior to that time.
St. Paul lies about 300 miles west of the Alaska mainland, and 750 air miles west of Anchorage.
### Contact information:
R. Dale Guthrie, professor emeritus Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 907-479-6034, ffrdg@uaf.edu
Marie Gilbert, publications and information coordinator, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 907-474-7412, marie.gilbert@uaf.edu.
PDF of Guthrie's Nature article, "Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island" and an image of Dale Guthrie holding a mammoth molar are available by contacting Marie Gilbert, 907-474-7412, marie.gilbert@uaf.edu.
ping
St. Paul, one of the five islands in the Bering Sea Pribilofs, was home to mammoths that survived the extinctions that wiped out mainland and other Bering Sea island mammoth populations.
My interpretation: Man caused the extinction of the mammoth. These mammoths were on an island, protected from man, but eventually succumbed.
I remember reading of an isolated population of mammoths on an island off Siberia, surviving well after the mainland population became extinct. The individual mammoths on the island became smaller in stature before finally going extinct.
Most of the large mammals in North America mysteriously became extinct after the arrival of native Americans.
I still can't figure out how species began as a single-mated pair and then thousands of generations later succumbed to in-breeding pressures.
Atkins!
It was on Wrangel Island.
The evidence is overwhelming it was human hunting....
The authour of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" thinks it was and that's one of the greates books I've ever read.
Unlike the large animals of Africa, the ones of North America didn't have humans gradually evolving so they could get used to the idea that humans were a danger to them......they were easy marks.
I remember read that also.
They were also isolated from diseases that may have killed the others. I don't think the human population was large enough to kill off all the things that went extinct...something else happened.
Surrounded by water on all sides, they would have been a few degrees warmer than those on the mainland.
Unlike the large animals of Africa, the ones of North America didn't have humans gradually evolving so they could get used to the idea that humans were a danger to them......they were easy marks.
///////////////////
however the mammoths of siberia and europe also disspeared during the same period. mammoths of these areas had long lived side by side with humans.
Not really....the cold areas of Siberia were populated pretty late; MUCH later than the rest of Eurasia.
Does anyone have a pic of the Mammoth found in Siberia a couple of years back?
From, or due to, which is it?
It would seem that monogamy would play a great part in migratory behavior and opportunity.
Still, it would require a rather favorable enviroment for the establishment of a non repeating breeding cycle and a chance for long-term success.
Crap, I misspelled environment.
Use milieu; fewer letters; exoticker plural.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.