An international team of researchers found that the reason for the extinction of mammoths in Siberia was primarily a sharp climate change, and not human activity. The article of scientists was published in the journal Nature.
Woolly mammoths became extinct only about four thousand years ago. They were not only the main source of meat of ancient people – the latter made the basis for dwellings from their bones, harpoons and even musical instruments were made from their tusks. Therefore, there is a widespread theory that humans were the main cause of extinction.
Researchers from the Institute of Earth Sciences at St. To do this, they used the shotgun method – obtaining from a random massive sample of cloned fragments of the original sequence – analyzed the DNA of ancient plants and animals collected from 535 different places in the Arctic, where the mammoth lived, for 20 years. They also analyzed the DNA of more than 1.5 thousand modern plants and animals.
The researchers were able to map the distribution of populations of mammoths and other representatives of the tundra steppe megafauna. They saw that over time, their populations and genetic diversity became less and less – making survival more and more difficult. With the end of the Pleistocene about 12 thousand years ago and the accompanying disappearance of glaciers and the formation of rivers, lakes and marshes, the vegetation decreased in its volume, and it became insufficient to maintain the previous level of populations. As the climate warmed, trees and marsh plants replaced the former mammoth pastures. “We have shown that climate change, in particular rainfall, has directly led to changes in vegetation. According to our models, humans did not have any influence on them [mammoths], ”said Yuchen Wang, the first author of the work, a researcher at the University of Cambridge.
However, the extinction of mammoths was influenced not only by climate warming itself. “Its speed became the last nail in the coffin lid – they (the megafauna of the tundra-steppe – Lenta.ru note) could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape was radically transformed and there was not enough food,” said the head of the scientific group, professor of Copenhagen and University of Cambridge Eske Villerslev.
