In the Steppes of Central Asia: Mammoth Carcasses, Fossil Flora, and Reconstruction of Northern Siberian Paleoclimate and Paleoecology in the Late Pleistocene

Abstract

Mammoths (genusMammuthus) are well known and popularly celebrated fossil elephants, particularly the woolly mammoth M. primigenius, with its thick fur, high domed skull, and prominent spiraled tusks. Although mammoths first arose in Africa in the latest Miocene during the initial diversification of elephants, they enjoyed their greatest success in more northerly latitudes following their migration out of Africa in the mid-Pliocene, eventually finding their way to Western Europe and across Asia into North America (Lister and Bahn 2007). The fossil record of these elephants is remarkable, documenting impressive morphological change in a moderately speciose lineage—skulls became taller and anteroposteriorly compressed, with a distinctive high, concave forehead profile, in part to accommodate development of molars of increasingly higher crowns and more plates, presumably in response to selective pressures for more efficient grazing abilities. Mammoths also eventually adapted to existence in glacial conditions in steppe-tundra habitats. The most derived and geographically successful of the mammoths was the late Pleistocene species Mammuthus primigenius, dispersed across Eurasia and North America, with an especially abundant presence in Siberia. Venerated in cave art and bone and ivory carvings, and ecologically treasured as the source of building materials, tools, instruments, and sustenance in Upper Paleolithic times, today we mourn the disappearance of these magnificent animals and are keen to know what they were like and about the cause(s) of their extinction. A new volume by Valentina Ukraintseva, an accomplished palynologist and member of the Mammoth Committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences, describes some of the most fascinating remains of woolly mammoths (and several other constituents of the mammoth faunal complex), in the form of frozen mummies (several with intact gastrointestinal contents) and skeletal relics from Siberia dated to the latter half of the late Pleistocene, with the aims of reconstructing mammoth lifeways, regional paleoclimate and paleoecology, and assessing reasons for extinction of mammoths. This is a laudable undertaking, because we require as much evidence as possible to resolve the debate about the contribution of human hunting versus factors of climate change and habitat loss in the demise of mammoths at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Ages, to devise strategies for coping with the effects of human interference and anthropogenic climate change on extant megaherbivores (Baryshnikov et al. 1999), and soon, perhaps, to answer whether it is ecologically viable to clone mammoths (Lister and Bahn 2007). The book is divided into three parts, the first (three chapters) contextual, about local history of investigation of sites, methods, and biogeography and ecology of the Bmammoth faunal complex^; the second (ten chapters) descriptive, of fossil and carcass occurrences, mostly but not exclusively of mammoths; and the third (four chapters) summary and interpretive, about gastrointestinal contents, fossil floras, climate and vegetation records, and factors of mammoth extinction. Chapters are accompanied by useful black-and-white photographs (some of them * William J. Sanders wsanders@umich.edu