Mammoth remains found in Michigan, USA
A team from the University of Michigan dug up the remains of this mammoth on a farm.
With the discovery of nearly complete mammoth remains in Michigan last week, questions about the fate of the mammoth have been raised again for a while: Did humans put an end to the Ice Age's most massive mammoth?
In a recent report, University of Michigan paleontologist Dan Fisher suggested that prehistoric humans may have killed and slaughtered the mammoth, and also refrigerated the leftover parts in the icy lake water. But most scientists have reservations, saying that unless artificial cuts are found on the skeleton, it will be difficult to conclude that it was the culprit.
So what about what happened to the other mammoths? What exactly caused the mammoth's demise? The mystery, like that of the other 36 North American mammals that died during the Ice Age, remains a mystery. The most competitive reason for the "human hunt" is dramatic climate change.
A rare find
Discovered by several farmers while turning over the soil on a soybean farm near Chelsea, Michigan, the remains of the mammoth are 12,000 years old, according to experts.
Fisher examined the skeletons, including the complete skull with tusks. Although mammoths have traversed Europe, Asia, and up to North America, only 10 mammoths have been excavated in Michigan so far, compared to the 300 American mastodons that have been excavated.
Chris Widget, a paleontologist at the Illinois State Museum, said, "Mammoths are not common in Michigan, and this is related to the ebb and flow of local glaciers. When mammoths dominated the land, Michigan was still covered with glaciers, and mammoths foraged in the icy grasslands south of the ice cap. It wasn't until the glaciers melted that mastodons dominated the mammalian world again."
Now a newly excavated mammoth is certainly caused for celebration. "This mammoth was found in what was once a grassland area, and we have the opportunity to gather more useful information," Widga said, "Fisher then intends to use the details on the mammoth's tusks to infer what happened to it."
Who killed the mammoths?
Previously, industry experts had debated. "It's unusual to find a mastodon more than 10,000 years old in a lake deposit or a swamp deposit, but it's unusual if it's a mammoth." Widget cautions.
No evidence of cut bones or anything of the sort has been found yet, and there are many other explanations for the mammoth remains scattered in lakes or swamps in the Midwestern United States, such as that they were eroded or even floated around during the slow settling process. "Without careful research and study, we cannot give a final answer," he added.
Mammoth remains found in Michigan, USA
The remains of a mammoth were recently discovered on a soybean farm by farmers in Chelsea, Michigan. The team is pictured here meticulously binding the skull and tusks and hoisting them onto a trailer.
Donald Grayson, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Washington, believes evidence that humans hunted or fed on mammoths is extremely scarce. David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University published a paper on the subject earlier this year, citing 76 Ice Age mammal hunting sites in North America, of which only 12 may have been at the hands of humans. In other words, humans were not the main driver of their demise.
The real culprit may have been climate change when the global climate was changing rapidly from dry and cold to hot and humid, and at the same time, humans were migrating to Eurasia.
Climate change took away the cold, dry grasslands and the mammoths' favorite food. To add insult to injury, there were many unfavorable factors, such as bison from Eurasia and the emergence of forests on the steppe. Mammoths were completely pushed out of history. The latest mammoth to appear was excavated on Wrangel Island, near northern Siberia, and was dated to about 4,000 years ago.
However, the causes of species extinction in most cases are multiple, and members of different stages of the extinction process may have suffered different fatal blows.
Certainly, the mammoths found in Chelsea may be the key to unraveling the mystery, or they may be just a small case study in our discussion of life and death during the Ice Age.
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