Nature: Humans did not cause the extinction of woolly mammoths

The hairy cousins ​​of today's elephants lived with early humans and were an ordinary staple food - their bones were used to build shelters, harpoons were carved from their huge ivory, and the artwork was painted on the cave walls , And 30,000 years ago, the oldest known musical instrument, the flute, was made of mammoth bones

Now, there is an answer to the fierce debate about why the mammoths went extinct.

This 10-year research project was published today (October 20, 2021) in the journal Nature and is led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a researcher at St.

The research team used DNA shotgun sequencing technology to analyze the remains of animals and plants in the environment, including urine, feces, and skin cells, which were extracted from soil samples collected after 20 years of painstaking efforts in the Arctic region where the remains of mammoths were found

Professor Willerslev said: "Scientists have debated the causes of the extinction of mammoths for 100 years

"We were finally able to prove that it is not just a climate change issue, but its speed is the final blow-they cannot adapt quickly enough when the landscape changes significantly and their food becomes scarce

"As the climate warms, trees and wetland plants have replaced the grassland habitat of mammoths

The woolly mammoth and its ancestors have lived on the earth for 5 million years.

Despite the cold, a lot of vegetation grows, allowing various kinds of animals to live, grass, flowers, plants, and small shrubs that have already eaten vegetarian mammoths may have their ivory shoveling snow aside, and it may be difficult to pull out with their noses Of grass

Mammoths can travel a distance equivalent to two laps around the earth in their lifetime.

"The most recent ice age-known as the end of the Pleistocene 12,000 years ago, when glaciers began to melt, the roaming range of groups of mammoths decreased

"We magnified the intricate details of environmental DNA, mapped out the population distribution of these mammals, and showed how they became smaller and smaller, and their genetic diversity became smaller and smaller, which made it more difficult for them to survive.

"When the climate becomes humid and the ice begins to melt, lakes, rivers and swamps are formed

Humans and woolly mammoths have lived together for at least 2000 years-even when the pyramids were built, humans already existed

Professor Willerslev said: "This is a bitter lesson from history, showing how unpredictable climate change is-once something is lost, it will never come back

"This shows that there is nothing that can be guaranteed in terms of the impact of drastic changes in weather

Journal Reference :

1. Wang, Y.
   , Pedersen, MW, Alsos, IG et al.
   Late Quaternary dynamics of Arctic biota from ancient environmental genomics .
   Nature , 2021 DOI: 10.
   1038/s41586-021-04016-x