… dwarf mammoth, that is. Here is what Nature News has to say about it:
Mammoth cave yields most recent animals
Nature News -- Published online: 20 October 2005
Alaskan island proves stronghold for mammoths in North America.
Archaeologists have unearthed the most recent remains of a mammoth yet discovered in North America. The bones, found in a cave on Alaska's remote Pribilof Islands, may represent the last bastion of the giant animals, or megafauna, that once freely roamed the continent.
The discovery underscores the fact that megafaunal species often seem to have made their last stand on isolated islands, sheltered from the danger of hunting. Some say the fact that such animals survived longer when beyond the reach of humans is proof that mankind was a big factor in driving the beasts to extinction.
The bones date to around 5,700 radiocarbon years ago - at least 2,200 years younger than any other known North American mammoth, says Kristine Crossen, a geologist at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. She reported her team's findings this week at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 1999, hunters on St Paul Island literally stumbled across the cave: a 12-metre-deep pit in the Arctic tundra. Seeing a wealth of bones, they alerted university archaeologists Douglas Veltre and David Yesner. The team launched an expedition in 2003 to gather as much as they could from the sticky mud in the cave, which they named Qagnax, the native Aleut word for 'bone'.
In the course of a week, the researchers picked up more than 1,750 bones- most of them belonging to foxes that had fallen in and couldn't get out, says Crossen. But among the other animal bones were seven pieces of a mammoth, including two complete teeth.
The team dated the bones using different techniques at two separate laboratories. "We couldn't believe it at first," says Crossen.
Mammoths died out on mainland Alaska around 11,500 radiocarbon years ago, the end of the Pleistocene epoch. But they are known to have lived longer elsewhere. Last year, other mammoth remains on St Paul Island were reported to be 7,900 radiocarbon years old. And on Wrangel Island, off Siberia, their remains have been found dating as recently as 3,700 years ago.
Most of these island mammoths, including the St Paul animals, were smaller than normal - just 10% of the normal size range for a mammoth, says Crossen. The animals may have shrunk in size as the island itself shrank, losing ground as sea levels rose after the end of the last ice age.
Archaeologists continue to debate the "overkill" theory, which holds that the first humans to arrive in North America hunted the continent's megafauna to extinction.
This one is not as young as the ones from Wrangel but a bit younger (as noted, by about 2,200 years) than the other ones found previously on St Paul island (click
HERE for background info).
As is rather normal these days, the piece is not overly informative. Mention is made of a “cave”, but, in reality (from the text and one of the pictures), it should have been described as a collapsed, narrow sinkhole or open shaft indicative of an underground karst system. Such features are known, throughout the world, as having frequently acted as “natural traps” for a wide variety of animals and, at times, humans. Palaeontologists love them.
The “ID” word (Island Dwarfism) which is quite in vogue these days is also briefly brought up but only with vague references to the process(es) that may have caused this mammoth shrinkage and to some elusive matter of “overkill”.
I am also particularly curious about the fact that “in the course of a week” only “seven pieces of a mammoth, including two complete teeth” were found. I mean, even extremely dwarfed, mammoths were big animals with a lot of big bones. Given the apparent setting, one would expect the recovery of a nearly complete animal.
But then, I suppose a real article will tell us more, especially about the taphonomy of these remains.
Jacques
