Mammoth characteristics and description. Findings of mammoth remains in Russia. Mammoths weren't the only "woolly" mammals in those days

Numerous mammoth bones have been found in sites of ancient Stone Age man; Drawings and sculptures of mammoths made by prehistoric man were also discovered. In Siberia and Alaska, there are known cases of the discovery of mammoth corpses that were preserved due to their presence in the thickness of permafrost. The main types of mammoths were no larger in size than modern elephants (while the North American subspecies Mammuthus emperor reached a height of 5 meters and a mass of 12 tons, and dwarf species Mammuthus exilis And Mammuthus lamarmorae did not exceed 2 meters in height and weighed up to 900 kg), but had a more massive body, shorter legs, long hair and long curved tusks; the latter could serve the mammoth for obtaining food in winter time from under the snow. Mammoth molars with numerous thin dentin-enamel plates were well adapted for chewing coarse plant food.

Baby mammoth Dima extracted from permafrost

One of the latest, most massive and southernmost burials of mammoths is located in the Kargat district of the Novosibirsk region, in the upper reaches of the Bagan River in the area “Volchya Griva”. It is believed that there are at least 1,500 mammoth skeletons here. Some of the bones bear traces of human processing, which allows us to build various hypotheses about the residence of ancient people in Siberia.

Skeleton

In terms of its skeletal structure, the mammoth bears a significant resemblance to the living Indian elephant, which it was somewhat larger in size, reaching 5.5 m in length and 3.1 m in height. Huge mammoth tusks, up to 4 m in length, weighing up to 100 kg, were inserted into the upper jaw, protruded forward, bent upward and diverged to the sides.

The molars, of which mammoths had one in each half of the jaw, are somewhat wider than those of the elephant and differ a large number and the hardness of lamellar enamel boxes filled with dental substance.

Reconstructed appearance of a mammoth at the age of 5 years

History of the study

Map of finds of mammoth bones in Russia

American Indian legends about mammoths

1. Asian group that appeared more than 450 thousand years ago; 2. American group that appeared about 450 thousand years ago; 3. intercontinental group that migrated from North America about 300 thousand years ago

Notes

Synonyms:

See what "Mammoth" is in other dictionaries:

- (from Tat. mamma earth, because the Tungus and Yakuts think that a mammoth burrows underground like a mole). A four-legged fossil animal similar to, but larger than, an elephant. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910.… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

The museum also features artifacts from more recent history, such as an American artifacts exhibit, a veterans' room, and a two-headed calf. This is all to say that Randall, a Broadus cattleman, was happy to be on board as the museum helped him harvest the mammoth over the past two years.

It was a once in a lifetime experience for me,” Randall said. “I loved being a part of it and it was a lot of fun.” Randall first discovered the Columbian mammoth on his property after a fisherman walking along the Powder River noticed some bones peeking out from the river bank. So, Randall took the angler's map and set off on what will most likely be the closest thing to a treasure hunt he's ever been on.

Sources for the reconstruction of the mythopoetic image of M. are images of M. (engraved, the oldest of them in the La Madeleine cave, France; paintings, sculptures), known throughout the northern zone of Eurasia, China and some adjacent... ... Encyclopedia of Mythology

MAMMOTH, mamut husband. a fossil animal, partly similar to an elephant, but even larger. related to him. Mammoth bone, its fossil fangs, used in crafts. Dictionary Dalia. V.I. Dahl. 1863 1866 … Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

“I went out and started hunting, trying to use the landscape and the map he was drawing for me,” Randall told the Tribune. “It was a fun warning.” When Randall found the place, he said he could see bones coming out of the ground. “You couldn’t see anything else, but we kept going down and found a couple more ribs,” he said.

Les Randall, from Broadus, discovered the Columbian mammoth on his property last summer. Following this summer's excavation, paleontologists are taking the bones to the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka. It was summer, and after discovering a few bones, Randall and a small team of paleontologists decided to let the sleeping giant lie down for the winter before returning to excavate the remains. At the time, they didn't know what they would find. They won't return to work until mid-summer.

- (Mammuthus primigenius), an extinct species of elephant. Known from the 2nd half of the Pleistocene of Eurasia and Northern. America. It was somewhat larger in size than the modern one. elephants, had a more massive body, shorter legs and tail, long hair and... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary

Strongman, big man, closet, mastodon, brute, mammoth Dictionary of Russian synonyms. mammoth noun, number of synonyms: 10 big guy (36) ... Dictionary of synonyms

Why did mammoths die?

Nathan Carroll, associate curator at the Carter County Museum, joined Randal on his property and conducted the excavation. He told Randal that it wouldn't be rare to find just a leg or a rib that survived tens of thousands of years. Instead, they were pleasantly surprised to unearth most of the skeleton, well preserved in the sediment, including several ribs, leg bones, a mostly intact skull and both tusks, about seven feet long.

Mammoths had an impressive layer of fat under their skin.

I was excited about it,” Randall said. Carroll, who graduated from Montana State University and teaches his doctorate at the University of Southern California, is also excited, but he knows there's a lot of work ahead before anything can be said definitively about Randall's mammoth.

We continue to delve into the history of the origin of mammoths. It turns out that the mammoth fauna included about 80 species of mammals. They managed to adapt to living in the cold continental climate of periglacial forest-steppe and tundra-steppe regions with permafrost, harsh winters with little snow and strong summer insolation. About 11 thousand years ago, due to sharp warming and humidification of the climate, the mammoth fauna disintegrated. Some species, such as the mammoth itself, the woolly rhinoceros, the giant deer, cave lion and others completely disappeared from the face of the earth. The reasons for the extinction of the mammoth fauna are not fully known. Over the long history of its existence, it has already experienced warm interglacial periods, and was then able to survive. Perhaps the latest warming has caused a more significant restructuring of the natural environment, or perhaps the species themselves have exhausted their evolutionary capabilities.

Mammoths, woolly and Columbian, lived over a vast territory: from Southern and Central Europe to Chukotka, Northern China and Japan (Hokkaido), as well as in North America. The existence of the Colombian mammoth was 250 - 10, woolly 300 - 4 thousand years ago. There is an opinion that mammoths were not the ancestors of modern elephants: they appeared on earth later and died out, without leaving even distant descendants. But this issue remains controversial.

Mammoths roamed in small herds, sticking to river valleys and feeding on grass, branches of trees and bushes. Such herds were very mobile - collecting the required amount of food in the tundra-steppe was not easy. The size of the mammoths was quite impressive: large males could reach a height of 3.5 meters, and their tusks were up to 4 m long and weighed about 100 kilograms. A thick coat, 70–80 cm long, protected mammoths from the cold.

WHAT DID MAMMOTHES EAT?

The structural features of the limbs and trunk, the proportions of the body, the shape and size of the mammoth’s tusks indicate that it, like modern elephants, ate various plant foods. Using their tusks, the animals dug out food from under the snow, tore off the bark of trees, and extracted vein ice, which was used instead of water in winter. For grinding food, the mammoth had only one, very large tooth on each side of the upper and lower jaws at the same time. The chewing surface of these teeth was a wide, long plate covered with transverse enamel ridges. Apparently, in the warm season the animals fed mainly on herbaceous vegetation. In the intestines and oral cavity of the mammoths that died in the summer, cereals and sedges predominated; there were lingonberry bushes, green mosses and thin shoots of willow, birch, and alder. The weight of an adult mammoth's stomach filled with food could reach 240 kg.

BUILD: HOW YOU LOOKED

Adult mammoths were massive animals, with long legs and a short body. Their height at the withers reached 3.5 m in males and 3 m in females. The main difference between them external sign there is a pronounced cervical interception between the “hump” and the head. In mammoth calves, these features were softened, and the upper head-back line was a single, weakly curved upward arc. Such an arc is present in adult mammoths, as well as in modern elephants, and is connected, purely mechanically, with maintaining enormous weight internal organs. The mammoth's head was larger than that of modern elephants. The ears are small, oval elongated, 5–6 times smaller than those of the Asian elephant, and 15–16 times smaller than those of the African elephant. The rostral part of the skull was quite narrow, the alveoli of the tusks were located very close to each other, and the base of the trunk rested on them. The tusks are more powerful than those of African and Asian elephants: their length in old males reached 4 m with a base diameter of 16–18 cm, in addition, they were twisted up and inward. The tusks of females were smaller (2–2.2 m, diameter at the base 8–10 cm) and almost straight. The ends of the tusks, due to the peculiarities of foraging, were usually worn away only from the outside. The mammoths' legs were massive, five-toed, with 3 small hooves on the front legs and 4 on the hind legs; the feet are rounded, their diameter in adults was 40–45 cm.

But still, the most unique feature of the mammoth’s external appearance is its thick coat, which consisted of three types of hair: undercoat, intermediate and covering, or guard hair. The color of the coat was relatively the same in males and females: on the forehead and on the crown of the head there was a cap of black, forward-directed coarse hair, 15–20 cm long, and the trunk and ears were covered with undercoat and a brown or brown color. The entire body of the mammoth was also covered with long, 80–90 cm guard hairs, under which a thick yellowish undercoat was hidden. The color of the skin of the body was light yellow or brown; dark pigment spots were observed in areas free from fur. During the winter, mammoths moulted; The winter coat was thicker and lighter than the summer coat.

WHAT THE MAMMOTH FINDS TELL US ABOUT

Mammoth remains at early Paleolithic human sites were rare and belonged mainly to young individuals. About the importance of mammoths in life primitive people This is evidenced by the fact that 20–30 thousand years ago, artists of the Cro-Magnon era depicted mammoths on stone and bone. Flat images were painted on cave walls, on slate and graphite plates, and on fragments of tusks; sculptural - created from bone, marl or slate using flint burins. It is very possible that such figurines were used as talismans, family totems, or played another ritual role.

From the 18th to the 19th centuries in Siberia, it is known that more than twenty reliable finds of mammoth remains were found in the form of frozen carcasses, their parts, skeletons with remains of soft tissue and skin. It can also be assumed that some of the finds remained unknown to science; many were discovered too late and could not be examined. Using the example of the Adams mammoth, discovered in 1799 on the Bykovsky Peninsula, it is clear that the results of the study about the animals found were received only several years after they were discovered. This is understandable: getting to the far corners of Siberia, even in the second half of the 20th century, was not easy. And the excavations themselves were carried out with difficulty: the greatest difficulty was extracting the corpse from the frozen ground and transporting it. The work of excavating and delivering the mammoth, discovered in the Berezovka River valley in 1900, can be called heroic, considering the transportation.

Now the number of finds of mammoth remains has doubled. This is due to the widespread development of the North, the development of transport and communications. The first comprehensive expedition using modern technology was a trip for the Taimyr mammoth, found in 1948 on an unnamed river, later called the Mammoth River. Removing the remains of animals “sealed” into the permafrost has become much easier these days thanks to the use of motor pumps that defrost and erode the soil with water. The “cemetery” of mammoths, discovered by N.F., should be considered a remarkable natural monument. Grigoriev in 1947 on the Berelekh River in Yakutia. For 200 meters, the river bank here is covered with a scattering of mammoth bones washed out of the bank slope.

By studying the Magadan (1977) and Yamal (1988) mammoth calves, scientists were able to clarify not only many issues of the anatomy and morphology of mammoths, but also draw a number of important conclusions about their habitat and the causes of extinction. The last few years have brought new remarkable discoveries: special mention should be made of the Yukagir mammoth (2002), which represents a unique, scientific point view, material. The head of an adult mammoth with remains of soft tissue and hair and a baby mammoth, found in 2007 in the Yuribey River basin in Yamal, were discovered. Outside Russia, one can note the finds of mammoth remains made by American scientists in Alaska, as well as a unique “trap cemetery” with the remains of more than 100 mammoths, discovered by L. Agenbrod in the town of Hot Springs (South Dakota, USA) in 1974.