The range of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) covered the northern circumpolar region, over time varying in size and space due to changes in regional climatic conditions. The species survived multiple glacial cycles, but got extinct around the end of the last glacial, between similar to 21,000 and 4000 years ago. Stable carbon (delta C-13) and nitrogen (delta N-15) data of woolly mammoth fossils from western Eurasia and Alaska, show considerable variation during periods of global climatic change and towards time of regional extinction. In North-eastern Siberia, the woolly mammoth survived several millennia longer. The fossil record from Northeastern Siberia yields, therefore, crucial ecological information about the living conditions of the woolly mammoth and plays an important role in the debate about the cause of its extinction. The current dataset comprises an unprecedented amount of delta C-13 and delta N-15 data of directly radiocarbon-dated woolly mammoth skeletal samples from North-eastern Siberia, including numerous Holocene samples from Wrangel Island. This study shows that the delta C-13 and delta N-15 values of the woolly mammoth remained amazingly stable in this region throughout the last similar to 50,000 years of its existence.
1.Leiden Univ, Fac Archaeol, Leiden, Netherlands 2.Univ Groningen, Ctr Isotope Res, Groningen, Netherlands 3.Shandong Univ, Inst Cultural Heritage, Jinan, Shandong, Peoples R China 4.RAS, Zool Inst, St Petersburg, Russia 5.North Eastern Fed Univ, Inst Appl Ecol North, Lenina 1, Yakutsk, Russia
Recommended Citation:
Kuitems, M.,van Kolfschoten, T.,Tikhonov, A. N.,et al. Woolly mammoth delta C-13 and delta N-15 values remained amazingly stable throughout the last similar to 50,000 years in north-eastern Siberia[J]. QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL,2019-01-01,500:120-127