Last straw versus Blitzkrieg overkill: Climate-driven changes in the Arctic Siberian mammoth population and the Late Pleistocene extinction problem

Nikolskiy, Pavel A.; Sulerzhitsky, L. D.; Pitulko, Vladimir V.

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.10.017

Cited by 72 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…They concur with Guthrie's ideas about the importance of climate-driven changes in soils and vegetation being the proximate causes of mammoth extinction. Like Nogués-Bravo et al (2008), they suggest humans were at most a synergistic factor in mammoth extinction in arctic Siberia.…”

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 98%

“…These authors proposed that humans and their commensals introduced a deadly disease to previously naïve species, which then died in the resulting epidemic. Nogués-Bravo et al (2008) combined computer models of climate-determined geographic ranges with models of population dynamics to infer how the geographic range of woolly mammoth changed over time. They inferred that 90% of suitable mammoth habitat disappeared from Siberia between 42 and 6 cal ka BP.…”

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on a large collection of dated mammoth bones from arctic Siberia, Nikolskiy et al (2011) observed that mammoth populations fluctuated synchronously with global climate changes, increasing during interstadials and decreasing during the coldest times. They found that mammoths survived on mainland Siberia until 10.7 cal ka BP.…”

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

“…They found that mammoths survived on mainland Siberia until 10.7 cal ka BP. Nikolskiy et al (2011) suggest human hunting served as the coup de grâce for a species already pushed into extinction debt by unfavorable environmental changes during the early Holocene. "Extinction debt" is the persistence of individuals of a species after its habitat is no longer able to support a viable population of that species.…”

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Mann

Groves

Kunz

et al. 2013

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Groves, Pamela; Kunz, Michael L.; Reanier, Richard E.; and Gaglioti, Benjamin V., "Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival" (2013 a b s t r a c tRadical restructuring of the terrestrial, large mammal fauna living in arctic Alaska occurred between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Steppe bison, horse, and woolly mammoth became extinct, moose and humans invaded, while muskox and caribou persisted. The ice age megafauna was more diverse in species and possibly contained 6Â more individual animals than live in the region today. Megafaunal biomass during the last ice age may have been 30Â greater than present. Horse was the dominant species in terms of number of individuals. Lions, short-faced bears, wolves, and possibly grizzly bears comprised the predator/scavenger guild. The youngest mammoth so far discovered lived ca 13,800 years ago, while horses and bison persisted on the North Slope until at least 12,500 years ago during the Younger Dryas cold interval. The first people arrived on the North Slope ca 13,500 years ago. Bone-isotope measurements and foot-loading characteristics suggest megafaunal niches were segregated along a moisture gradient, with the surviving species (muskox and caribou) utilizing the warmer and moister portions of the vegetation mosaic. As the ice age ended, the moisture gradient shifted and eliminated habitats utilized by the dryland, grazing species (bison, horse, mammoth). The proximate cause for this change was regional paludification, the spread of organic soil horizons and peat. End-Pleistocene extinctions in arctic Alaska represent local, not global extinctions since the megafaunal species lost there persisted to later times elsewhere. Hunting seems unlikely as the cause of these extinctions, but it cannot be ruled out as the final blow to megafaunal populations that were already functionally extinct by the time humans arrived in the region.

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Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 98%

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: North Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Mann

Groves

Kunz

et al. 2013

Quaternary Science Reviews

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“…Proposed extinction drivers include environmental change, human impacts, or some combination, with the relative contributions of these varying by species and region (2). Woolly mammoths, an iconic Ice Age species, vanished from mainland Asia and North America between 14,000 and 13,200 y ago, with some mainland populations perhaps persisting until approximately 10,500 y ago (1,3,4); however, relict populations survived on two newly formed Beringian islands into the middle Holocene (4-7) (Fig. 1A).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Timing and causes of mid-Holocene mammoth extinction on St. Paul Island, Alaska

Graham

Belmecheri

Choy

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

149

169

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Relict woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) populations survived on several small Beringian islands for thousands of years after mainland populations went extinct. Here we present multiproxy paleoenvironmental records to investigate the timing, causes, and consequences of mammoth disappearance from St. Paul Island, Alaska. Five independent indicators of extinction show that mammoths survived on St. Paul until 5,600 ± 100 y ago. Vegetation composition remained stable during the extinction window, and there is no evidence of human presence on the island before 1787 CE, suggesting that these factors were not extinction drivers. Instead, the extinction coincided with declining freshwater resources and drier climates between 7,850 and 5,600 y ago, as inferred from sedimentary magnetic susceptibility, oxygen isotopes, and diatom and cladoceran assemblages in a sediment core from a freshwater lake on the island, and stable nitrogen isotopes from mammoth remains. Contrary to other extinction models for the St. Paul mammoth population, this evidence indicates that this mammoth population died out because of the synergistic effects of shrinking island area and freshwater scarcity caused by rising sea levels and regional climate change. Degradation of water quality by intensified mammoth activity around the lake likely exacerbated the situation. The St. Paul mammoth demise is now one of the best-dated prehistoric extinctions, highlighting freshwater limitation as an overlooked extinction driver and underscoring the vulnerability of small island populations to environmental change, even in the absence of human influence. mammoth | extinction | Holocene | St. Paul Island | ancient DNA

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The Berelekh Mammoth “Graveyard”: New Chronological and Stratigraphical Data from the 2009 Field Season

2014

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To clarify unanswered questions of site formation, geology and the archaeology of the Berelekh geoarchaeological complex, a special survey was undertaken in 2009 of the area surrounding the site. Several geological units have been revealed. By establishing the spatial and temporal relationship of these deposits—as well as their age—we have reconstructed the formation history of the Berelekh bone bed. The mammoth bone deposit belongs to a paleochannel. Radiocarbon dating of mammoth remains at Berelekh demonstrates rapid accumulation during the Bølling warming. Human involvement in its formation is, at best, questionable, since there is no real overlap between the radiocarbon dates associated with past human activity, and those of the mammoth bone bed. This study confirms that humans used mammoth bone remains after the bone bed was deposited. Culturally, the Berelekh “site” does not have any relationship to the so‐called “Dyuktai culture.” Instead, the Berelekh archaeological finds (side notched stone pendants) show certain similarities to non‐microblade terminal Pleistocene assemblages found from Yenisei to Kamchatka. Additionally, the Berelekh complex presents a clear analogy with lithics found in Eastern Beringia. Teardrop‐shaped incomplete bifaces found in the assemblage are comparable to the Chindadn points of Alaska. The nature of this “Chindadn connection” is intriguing but it is the only visible cultural link between Western and Eastern Beringia.

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Last straw versus Blitzkrieg overkill: Climate-driven changes in the Arctic Siberian mammoth population and the Late Pleistocene extinction problem

Cited by 72 publications

References 60 publications

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

Timing and causes of mid-Holocene mammoth extinction on St. Paul Island, Alaska

The Berelekh Mammoth “Graveyard”: New Chronological and Stratigraphical Data from the 2009 Field Season

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