The Last Woolly Mammoths Survived Until About 3,600 Years Ago

A small group of woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island until about 3,600 years ago, roughly 1,000 years after the pyramids of Giza were built.

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Woolly mammoths are usually pictured as animals of the Ice Age, but their story lasted much longer than that. Most mammoths disappeared from mainland Eurasia and North America thousands of years earlier, while a small isolated population survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic until roughly 3,600 to 4,000 years ago. That means mammoths were still alive after the Great Pyramid of Giza had already stood for about a millennium. Research on mammoth remains from Wrangel Island shows that the island population remained surprisingly stable for thousands of years. Genetic studies found reduced diversity compared with earlier mammoth populations, but they did not show the continuing genetic decline that would be expected if inbreeding alone had driven the animals toward extinction. Scientists have therefore considered sudden environmental change and the arrival of humans among the possible factors behind the final disappearance. Archaeological evidence places humans on Wrangel Island around the same period, although direct evidence that they hunted the last mammoths has not been established. Later research has also suggested that changes involving the island environment and freshwater may have played a role. The exact final cause remains uncertain, but the late survival of these mammoths shows how isolated populations can persist long after a species has vanished from most of its former range.

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