About the mammoth fauna. Fossil Mammals Extinction Hypotheses

It is impossible to consider the history of the development of something or someone in isolation from the environment that surrounds it. Therefore, today I invite you to talk about what kind of world surrounded our ancestors.

Pleistocene landscape.
Source: https://ru.wikipedia.org/

Immediately I propose to limit our story to space-time frames. Since we live in the northern part of Eurasia, this territory is closest to us, and therefore let's limit ourselves to it. IN Northern Eurasia first representatives Homosapiens appeared about 50 thousand years ago. Thus, it is logical to confine ourselves to these time frames in our story. This is the time of the so-called "last ice age". It is named last for the reason that during the Pleistocene there were repeated changes of cold and warm epochs. In cold epochs, especially in the northern hemisphere, there was a development of ice sheets, a drop in the level of the world ocean, the climate in such epochs was much more severe than the present. During the warm intervals of the "interglacial" ice caps were reduced, the level of the world ocean rose (sometimes even higher than in modern times), the climate was mild and warm.

The last ice age began about 110 thousand years ago. and ended about 10-9.5 thousand years ago, it was replaced by the modern interglacial, called the Holocene. Thus, most of the time of human existence in Northern Eurasia falls precisely on the ice age. So, what was the nature of Northern Eurasia during the Ice Age?

Perhaps we should start with the climate that formed the natural environment. The climate during the ice age was cold, harsh and sharply continental. In the north of Europe and in some areas of the north modern Russia extensive glaciations were formed, covering the entire space (Fig. 1). In the mountains of the Urals, the Caucasus, South and Eastern Siberia glaciations were mountain-valley, that is, they arose only in the mountains and foothill valleys. As a result of the formation of glaciers that took moisture from the atmosphere, in winter time very little snow fell, which led to the development of a zone of continuous “permafrost”, which was found even in the north of modern Kazakhstan. In addition, glaciations contributed to very strong winds that carried sand and dust for many hundreds of kilometers, forming real dunes and manes in some places.

In such harsh conditions, under the influence of strong wind and trees could not grow on frozen soils, so the area of ​​​​forests was reduced. Forests huddled mainly in the floodplains of the rivers, depressions of the relief and along the slopes of the mountains. Vast areas were occupied by dry grassy plains, called tundra-steppes. These unique landscapes have no direct modern analogues; they combined the features of the current tundra, steppe and forest-steppe. Due to abundant sunlight, which was not absorbed by the forest cover, the tundra-steppes received enough solar energy for growth. The thawing of permafrost in the summer provided water for herbaceous plants. Thus, during the warm period, enough grass was formed to feed herds of many thousands of ungulates not only in summer, but also in the cold season. In autumn, the grass dried up and turned into “hay on the vine”. In this form, the grass remained standing until the next spring, and the small amount of snow that fell allowed the animals to easily get it even in winter.

Animals that lived in the tundra steppe and adapted to these harsh conditions formed a specific community called the “Mammoth Fauna” (this is the name given to a group of mammals that lived on the territory of Northern Eurasia in the late Pleistocene) (Fig. 2).

The entire composition of the mammoth fauna can be divided into two large groups: consumers of plant biomass are herbivores; consumers of animal biomass are carnivores or predators. Each group was in turn divided into smaller groups. So, among the herbivores there were those who ate almost exclusively grass (saiga, horses, rhinos, musk oxen, reindeer), there were those who consumed both grass and tree and shrub food (mammoths, bison, noble and giant deer), and someone preferred to feed on foliage and branches of shrubs and trees (roe deer, elk, beavers). Predators also varied. Small ones, like foxes and arctic foxes, fed on small rodents. The wolf and wolverine mainly preyed on medium-sized animals such as roe deer, reindeer and saiga. Of course, the main predator of that time was cave lion, who hunted all large animals, except perhaps for an adult mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. Not less, and possibly more dangerous predator were cave hyenas, which not only could successfully hunt large ungulates, but also actively consumed carrion. Moreover, their powerful jaws were so strong that they made it possible to gnaw the bones of the largest representatives of the mammoth fauna - the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros. This is confirmed by the large number of gnawed remains of these animals in the cave lairs of hyenas.

Here is just the most generalized list of animals of the mammoth fauna. Naturally, it was noticeably more diverse, so in the foothills one often met mountain goats and sheep, and with them red wolves and snow leopards. On Far East Himalayan bears lived, gazelles lived in Mongolia and Transbaikalia, and gazelles in Central Asia. However, the most important feature The entire mammoth fauna was the ubiquitous distribution of such animals as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, reindeer, saiga, musk ox, cave lion, and cave hyena (Fig. 3).

Separately, I would like to note the similarity of the mammoth fauna with the fauna of the modern African savannah. So, here and there one could meet elephants and rhinos, horses, various antelopes, and large bulls. Even such seemingly exotic predators as hyenas and lions, and they felt great in the ice age. Ecological analogues (with a certain degree of conventionality) of animals African savannas were distributed on all continents (except Antarctica). So what is the reason for this amazing similarity? Everything is very simple, all these faunas were formed on similar landscapes - namely, in the conditions of vast plains overgrown with a lot of grass. These grassy plains formed excellent pastures that were able to feed huge herds of herbivores, and those in turn were predators. And those and others actively fertilized the soil with their bodies and excrement. During the ice age, such pastures existed on all continents, except for Antarctica, of course. Therefore, the fauna that inhabited these pastures on all continents were similar in ecological terms.

It is not surprising that our ancestors easily adapted to new conditions on all continents, wherever they went. After all, the most important thing, namely, game animals, were similar to those to which they were accustomed for millions of years of life in Africa. Apparently, this helped our distant ancestors to successfully settle throughout the planet.

The mammoth fauna included about 80 species of mammals, which due to a number of anatomical, physiological and behavioral adaptations managed to adapt to living in a cold continental climate periglacial forest-steppe and tundra-steppe regions with their permafrost, severe winters with little snow and strong summer insolation. Approximately at the turn of the Holocene, about 11 thousand years ago, due to a sharp warming and humidification of the climate, which led to the thawing of the tundra-steppes and other fundamental changes in landscapes, the mammoth fauna disintegrated. Some species, such as the mammoth itself, woolly rhinoceros, giant deer, cave lion and others, have disappeared from the face of the earth. Row large species calluses and ungulates - wild camels, horses, yaks, saiga are preserved in the steppes Central Asia, some others have adapted to life in completely different natural areas(bison, kulan); many, such as the reindeer, musk ox, arctic fox, wolverine, white hare, and others, were driven far to the north and sharply reduced their area of ​​distribution. The reasons for the extinction of the mammoth fauna are not completely known. Over the long history of its existence, it experienced already warm interglacial periods, and was then able to survive. Obviously, the latest warming has caused a more significant restructuring natural environment, or maybe the species themselves have exhausted their evolutionary possibilities.

Mammoths, woolly (Mammuthus primigenius) and Columbian (Mammuthus columbi), lived in the Pleistocene-Holocene on a vast territory: from southern and central Europe to Chukotka, northern China and Japan (Hokkaido Island), as well as in North America. The time of existence of the Colombian mammoth 250 - 10, woolly 300 - 4 thousand years ago (some researchers also include southern (2300 - 700 thousand years) and trogontheric (750 - 135 thousand years) elephants into the genus Mammuthus). Contrary to popular belief, mammoths were not the ancestors of modern elephants: they appeared on earth later and died out without even leaving distant descendants. Mammoths roamed in small herds, adhering to river valleys and feeding on grass, branches of trees and shrubs. Such herds were very mobile - it was not easy to collect the required amount of food in the tundra steppe. The size of the mammoths was quite impressive: large males could reach a height of 3.5 meters, and their tusks were up to 4 meters long and weighed about 100 kilograms. A powerful coat, 7080 cm long, protected the mammoths from the cold. Average life expectancy was 4550, maximum 80 years. The main reason for the extinction of these highly specialized animals is a sharp warming and humidification of the climate at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene, snowy winters, as well as an extensive marine transgression that flooded the shelf of Eurasia and North America.

The structural features of the limbs and trunk, the proportions of the body, the shape and size of the mammoth tusks indicate that, like modern elephants, it ate various plant foods. With the help of tusks, animals dug out food from under the snow, tore off the bark of trees; vein ice was mined, which was used in winter instead of water. For grinding food, the mammoth had on each side an upper and mandible only one, very large tooth at a time. The chewing surface of these teeth was a wide, long plate covered with transverse enamel ridges. Apparently, in the warm season, the animals fed mainly on grassy vegetation. in the intestines and oral cavity dead in the summer mammoths were dominated by grasses and sedges, in small quantities there were lingonberry bushes, green mosses and thin shoots of willow, birch, and alder. The weight of an adult mammoth's stomach filled with food could reach 240 kg. It can be assumed that in winter, especially in the snowy season, the shoots of trees and shrubs acquired the main importance in the nutrition of animals. The huge amount of food consumed made mammoths, like modern elephants, lead a mobile lifestyle and often change their feeding areas.

Adult mammoths were massive animals, with relatively long legs and short body. Their height at the withers reached 3.5 m in males and 3 m in females. characteristic feature The appearance of the mammoth was a sharp sloping back, and for old males - a pronounced cervical interception between the “hump” and the head. In mammoths, these exterior features were softened, and the upper line of the head/back was a single, slightly upwardly curved arc. Such an arc is also present in adult mammoths, as well as in modern elephants, and is connected, purely mechanically, with maintaining the enormous weight of the internal organs. The mammoth's head was larger than that of modern elephants. The ears are small, oval elongated, 5-6 times smaller than those of Asian elephant, and 15–16 times less than that of the African. The rostral part of the skull was rather narrow, the alveoli of the tusks were located very close to each other, and the base of the trunk rested on them. The tusks are more powerful than those of the African and Asian elephants: their length in old males reached 4 m with a base diameter of 1618 cm, in addition, they were twisted up and inward. The tusks of females were smaller (2–2.2 m, diameter at the base 8–10 cm) and almost straight. The ends of the tusks, in connection with the peculiarities of foraging, were usually erased only from the outside. The legs of the mammoths were massive, five-toed, with 3 small hooves on the front and 4 on the hind limbs; the feet are rounded, their diameter was 40–45 cm in adults. But still the most unique feature appearance mammoth - a thick coat, consisting of three types of hair: undercoat, intermediate and coverts, or guard hairs. The topography and coloration of the coat was relatively the same in males and females: on the forehead and on the crown of the head grew a cap of black coarse hair directed forward, 15–20 cm long, and the trunk and ears were covered with undercoat and awn of brown or brown color. The entire body of the mammoth was also covered with long, 80–90 cm outer hair, under which a thick yellowish undercoat was hidden. The color of the skin of the body was light yellow or brown, dark pigment spots were observed on areas free from hair. Mammoths molted for the winter; winter coat was thicker and lighter than summer.

Mammoths had a special relationship with primitive man. The remains of a mammoth at the sites of a man of the early Paleolithic were quite rare and belonged mainly to young individuals. One gets the impression that primitive hunters at that time did not often hunt mammoths, and the hunt for these huge animals was rather an accidental event. In the settlements of the Late Paleolithic, the picture changes dramatically: the number of bones increases, the ratio of males, females and young animals caught approaches the natural structure of the herd. Hunting for mammoths and other large animals of that period is no longer selective, but mass; The main method of hunting animals is driving them to rocky cliffs, into trapping pits, on the fragile ice of rivers and lakes, into swampy areas of marshes and on quays. The driven animals were finished off with stones, darts and stone-tipped spears. Mammoth meat was used for food, tusks were used to make weapons and handicrafts, bones, skulls and skins were used to build dwellings and ritual structures. The mass hunting of people of the Late Paleolithic, the growth in the number of tribes of hunters, the improvement of hunting tools and methods of extraction against the background of constantly deteriorating living conditions associated with changes in familiar landscapes, according to some researchers, played a decisive role in the fate of these animals.

The importance of mammoths in the life of primitive people is evidenced by the fact that even 20-30 thousand years ago, artists of the Cro-Magnon era depicted mammoths on stone and bone, using flint chisels and shaving brushes with ocher, iron oxide and manganese oxides. Previously, the paint was rubbed with fat or bone marrow. Flat images were painted on the walls of caves, on plates of slate and graphite, on fragments of tusks; sculptural - created from bone, marl or slate using flint chisels. It is very possible that such figurines were used as talismans, ancestral totems, or played another ritual role. Despite the limited means of expression, many images are very artistic, and quite accurately convey the appearance of fossil giants.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, a little more than twenty reliable finds of mammoth remains in the form of frozen carcasses, their parts, skeletons with remnants of soft tissues and skin are known in Siberia. It can also be assumed that some of the finds remained unknown to science, many were found out too late and could not be studied. Using the example of the mammoth Adams, discovered in 1799 on the Bykovsky Peninsula, it is clear that news about the found animals came to the Academy of Sciences only a few years after they were discovered, and it was not easy to get to the far corners of Siberia even in the second half of the 20th century. . The great difficulty was the extraction of the corpse from the frozen ground and its transportation. The excavation and delivery of a mammoth discovered in the Berezovka River valley in 1900 (undoubtedly the most significant of the paleozoological finds of the early 20th century) can be called heroic without exaggeration.

In the 20th century, the number of finds of mammoth remains in Siberia doubled. This is due to the extensive development of the North, the rapid development of transport and communications, and the rise in the cultural level of the population. The first complex expedition using modern technology was a trip for the Taimyr mammoth, found in 1948 on an unnamed river, later called the Mammoth River. The extraction of the remains of animals “soldered” into the permafrost has become noticeably easier today thanks to the use of motor pumps that defrost and erode the soil with water. A remarkable monument of nature should be considered the "cemetery" of mammoths, discovered by N.F. Grigoriev in 1947 on the Berelekh River (the left tributary of the Indigirka River) in Yakutia. For 200 meters, the river bank here is covered with a scattering of mammoth bones washed out of the coastal slope.

Studying the Magadan (1977) and Yamal (1988) mammoths, scientists managed to clarify not only many questions of the anatomy and morphology of mammoths, but also to make a number of important findings about their habitat and causes of extinction. The last few years have brought new remarkable finds in Siberia: special mention should be made of the Yukagir mammoth (2002), which is unique, with scientific point of vision, material (the head of an adult mammoth with remnants of soft tissues and wool was found) and a baby mammoth found in 2007 in the basin of the Yuribei River in Yamal. Outside of Russia, it is necessary to note the finds of mammoth remains made by American scientists in Alaska, as well as the unique “cemetery-trap” with the remains of more than 100 mammoths, discovered by L. Agenbrod in Hot Springs (South Dakota, USA) in 1974.

The exhibits of the mammoth hall are unique - after all, the animals presented here have already disappeared from the face of the earth several thousand years ago. Some of the most significant of them need to be discussed in more detail.

So, about a million years ago, under the influence of cosmic and planetary causes, a noticeable cooling of the climate began in the Northern Hemisphere. Caps and tongues of glaciers grew on mountain ranges, a snow line descended. The currents of the oceans, the outlines of the shores of the seas changed, and the river network was restructured. Under the influence of changes in the physical environment, the plant and animal world.

Subtropical evergreen forests at the latitude of London, Moscow, Novosibirsk and Yakutsk were saturated with deciduous and coniferous species. There was a great turning point in flora and vegetation. Instead of boundless forests, savannahs and meadow-steppes began to appear on the watershed spaces of the hot plains. In this era of the late Pliocene - early Anthropogen, the hipparion fauna with its three-toed zebroid-looking hipparions, heavy mastodons and machairods (saber-toothed cats) ended its existence. They were replaced by long-bodied elephants with slightly curved tusks, single-toed large and heavy horses with high columnar molars. Huge food resources of grassy meadows and valley gallery forests ensured the prosperity of leaf-eating and branch-eating deer, roe deer, and markhorn antelope. The ancestors of herbivorous aurochs and bison, who previously eked out a miserable existence, quickly gained body size in the spaces of meadow-steppes and steppes, and the number of populations also increased. The open sunshine on the slopes of the hills attracted burrowing rodents - ground squirrels, stocky marmots.

Primitive human-like creatures have already tried to spread from Africa and, possibly, from South Asia to the north - to Europe and Central Asia.

Many tens of millennia passed before the next wave of cooling came. Deciduous trees and shrubs, alternating with conifers, replaced evergreen vegetation in Europe, which remained only in places in the south near the coasts of warm seas.

The latitudinal zonality of the landscapes of Eurasia, close to modern - with deserts, steppes and meadow-steppes, mixed and taiga forests, tundra-steppes - was created already at the dawn of the Pleistocene. The fauna of these spaces was formed due to the adaptation of local species - their ecology and structural features - to new conditions, as well as due to the widest settlements within the named zones of some species and the extinction of others. Invasions of species from the south, from the tropics were small.

Ancestors of monkeys (macaques), mountain ungulates (goats, rams and deer), carnivores and rodents appeared in the mountains of the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Tien Shan, Southern and Eastern Siberia, Khingan and Tibet. Deserts and steppes were inhabited by horses, camels, antelopes, gazelles, bulls, ground squirrels, marmots. Hippos and warthogs still lingered in places near lakes and swamps. Meadow and forest steppes, gallery forests along river valleys were mastered by elephants - forest, trogontherian and mammoth, Etruscan rhinoceros, elasmotherium, three or four species of horses and donkeys, wild boar, complex-horned and giant deer, markhorned antelopes, primeval tours, yaks and bison.

The taiga zone, apparently, was in its infancy, and coniferous forests huddled along the gorges of the ridges and valleys of the rivers. Their early Pleistocene fauna is little known, but there is no doubt that the ancestors of hazel grouses and wood grouses, martens and squirrels lived here. The far north, the meadow and tundra steppes of the then Arctic, have already mastered the ancient horses, the ancestors reindeer and musk ox, the ancestors of lemmings - lagurodons and land beavers - trogontheria. In general, it was this early Pleistocene fauna that was the basis for the formation of the subsequent mammoth group.

A new series of climate coolings in the second half of the Pleistocene was accompanied by the development of mountain and plain glaciations and a drop in the level of the oceans. These cold snaps contributed to the further impoverishment of the fauna of the Northern Hemisphere in heat-loving species and the transformation of the survivors into extremely cold-resistant forms.

A number of species of animals - the "early" mammoth, Knobloch's camel, long-horned bison, cave lions and cave sheaves that crushed the bones of fallen giants - reached the largest size and biological flowering in the Middle Pleistocene (Mindelérisse). By this time, the tribes of primitive hunters had already invaded from the south and quickly settled over the widest expanses of southern Europe and the northern half of Asia.

The early mammoth fauna of the middle latitudes of Eurasia contained mainly steppe and forest-steppe animals. Most of the then - Middle Pleistocene - animals and birds were already adapted to the open landscapes of meadows and steppes.

The picture of the animal world of those cold steppes of the European and Asian Pleistocene probably resembled the modern savannah of equatorial Africa:

On the vast plains of the Dnieper and Volga regions, southern Siberia, hundreds of shoals of horses and donkeys grazed here and there. In some places, in the birch and aspen copses of wide meadow floodplains, the brown shocks of small herds of mammoths, the tight-fisted carcasses of solitary elasmotheriums and rhinos, swayed. Large-horned and red deer fed along the edges of the river willow. In the distance, in the haze of the open watershed spaces of the dry steppe, the ugly figures of shaggy camels slowly floated by and the living arrays of nomadic herds of bison darkened. Ground squirrels and marmots emerged from the ground in bright columns and suddenly disappeared back with an alarming whistle when the shadow of an eagle passed close by, a fox ran past, or the clatter of a flock of saigas pursued by wolves was heard. Near a half-dried lake, spotted cave hyenas labored over the blackened skeleton of an old bison, while a satiated family cave lions resting serenely in the shade of a single willow.

The blissful peace of the warm season was replaced by worries in temporary starvation harsh winters. Then, during snowstorms, all living things sought protection in oak forests, in birch groves, in steppe gullies and in ravines among the hills. In the spring, catastrophic floods occurred - floods and river valleys turned into cold seas for a long time, in which hundreds and thousands of large animals caught in the flood died.

The last ice age, which began 70-60 millennia ago (the Würm, in Europe, and in our country, the Valdai), left indelible marks on the landscape and organic world northern half of Eurasia. Late mammoth fauna formed and flourished throughout the Valdai ice age, i.e. for almost 50 millennia. The conditions of its habitat were also steppe and tundra-steppe. With the level of the oceans falling by 130-150 m, the British Isles, Sakhalin and the Japanese Islands formed one whole with the mainland. The grandiose zone of frozen tundra-steppes at that time extended from British land through middle Europe, the Russian Plain to Sakhalin and Japan and further to the northeast, including Taimyr, the New Siberian Islands and Alaska.

The permafrost of soils determined the existence of coniferous and deciduous forests only along river valleys, gorges and mountain slopes. From the outskirts of the glaciers, the winds carried loess dust deposited among the lush grassy vegetation along the slopes and in the river valleys. Despite the extreme dryness of the climate, low temperatures dust firmly settled on the thawing and damp soil. In winter, severe frosts tore the surface of the earth with deep cracks. Ice wedges from the water flowing in the summer, compressing the pillars of the soil, went deep into the tens of meters. Living conditions were harsh, but with an abundance of grassy food on hard ground, it was possible to live. The inhabitants of this harsh zone have long acquired physiological and morphological adaptations for protection from dry cold.

The entire composition of the late mammoth fauna can be divided into two large groups: consumers of primary (plant) biomass - herbivores and consumers of secondary (meat) biomass - carnivores, who lived at the expense of the former. The list of the most characteristic animals of these frozen tundra-steppes, steppes and forest-steppes contains up to 50 species (p. 19). There were other, less noticeable and few species, such as, for example, a sheep - sorgelia, an antelope - the Transbaikal bubal.

Such a composition is repeated in bone-bearing localities with surprising constancy almost along the entire length from the coast. Atlantic Ocean to the shores of the Pacific. Depending on the nature of the burial and its coordinates, however, there were local variations. However, the “indicator” or “guiding” species, namely the mammoth, hairy rhinoceros, horse, reindeer and red deer, primitive bison, arctic fox, wolf, cave hyena and cave lion, really lived at that time on vast expanses of plains. Meanwhile, their own species lived in the mountains and deserts - mountain and desert animals: goats, rams, chamois, ground squirrels, marmots, about which we know more from the living species.

Judging by the frequency of encounters of their bones in geological outcrops, on river towpaths, and in the layers of Paleolithic sites, one can give such an approximate table of the relative abundance of indicator animals on a ten-point scale.

The specific descriptions further give brief information about some of these remarkable animals that ensured the existence and development of primitive man and mankind in the Stone Age. The primitive man himself in the heyday of the late mammoth fauna has already achieved a lot. He completely mastered fire, knew how to make elegant flint tools - pointed, chisels, knives, javelins and spears - and came close to the invention and use of bows. He invented, in addition, many ingenious traps for animals and birds, and, perhaps, even used poisons. In chapter IV we will tell about his hunts in more detail.

mammoth fauna, mammoth faunistic complex , a complex of species of mammals that lived on the territory. Europe (excluding the Apennine, Balkan and Pyrenean Peninsulas) and North. Asia in the late Pleistocene (130-10 thousand years ago). characteristic feature M. f. there was a joint existence in most of its range of species, to-rye now live in different natural zones: red deer, lemmings, arctic fox, saiga, sowing. deer, steppe pika, marmot. Typical types, to-rye were a part of M. f. almost throughout the territory. its distribution and throughout its existence, there were: a primitive bison, a wolf, an arctic fox, a Don hare, a cave lion, a wild horse (see Horse), a mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros, a steppe pika, a narrow-skulled vole, a wolverine, sowing. deer. In addition to these numerous species in the composition of M. f. different regions included, and others, few. and rare: for example, marten, elk, brown bear and cave bear, giant deer, different types small mustelids, rodents and insectivores. The composition of the main species M. f. also changed over time. Allocate 2 chapters. chronological variant M. f.: interglacial (130-100 thousand years ago) and glacial (100-10 thousand years ago). During the interglacial period, numerous types of M. f. almost throughout the territory. its distribution were: red deer, beaver, forest voles, elk, different types of mice; in Europe and, possibly, in the Urals - a forest elephant. The mammoth was represented by an early evolutionary form. During the ice age, the ranges of these species were greatly reduced; species composition M. f. differed markedly in different regions. According to the composition, most numerous species allocated 3 main. geogr. variant M. f .: glacial (northern), tundra-forest-steppe and steppe. In the composition of the sowing option other than the above. species included musk ox and lemmings, ungulates and sib.; tundroforest-steppe - red deer, big gopher, cave hyena, fox, saiga, steppe marmot, steppe polecat, several. species of voles (water, forest, common, dark, housekeeper), common. and yellow pied, gray hamster and Eversmann's hamster, ungulate and sib. lemmings. The composition of the steppe variant included: most of the species of the tundra-forest-steppe variant (with the exception of forest voles and lemmings), bactrian camel, Pleistocene donkey, corsac fox, jerboas. Depending on climate fluctuations in tech. ice age, there were also changes in the composition of M. f. Allocate M. f. relatively warm periods (interstadials), in which the proportion of forest species(red deer, beaver, brown bear, forest voles, elk, etc.), and M. f. cold periods (glacials), where the proportion of these species sharply decreased. On the territory Pers. region remains of species M. f. found in more than 50 localities of alluvial and lacustrine-alluvial types, in more than 50 localities in karst grottoes and caves. In some of them, the remains of M. f. adjacent to the tools ancient man: for example, at the sites of Bogdanovka and Troitskaya I; in the caves of Ignatievskaya, Smelovskaya 2, Sikiyaz-Tamak 7 (see Sikiyaz-Tamak cave complex); Ustinovo grotto and Zotinsky grotto. As a result of the study of these remains on the territory. Pers. region allocated several region. complexes of M. f., chronologically replacing each other. In most of the territory in the region they belong to the tundra-forest-steppe variant, and only in the south itself are the steppe complexes of the M. f.; complexes related to the interglacial were not found. The oldest known is Aratsky (named after the village of Aratsky in Katav-Ivanov district), which existed 30-100 thousand years ago and can be correlated with one of the relatively warm periods (interstadials). Its species composition included forest and yellow-throated mice, wild sheep (mouflon), giant deer, cave hyena, cave bear. The complex is presented in Idrisovskaya, Ust-Katavskaya and lower. layers of the Ignatievskaya and Sikiyaz-Tamak caves 7. The trace, the complex - Ignatievsky (along the Ignatievsky cave) - existed 25 ... 30-10 thousand years ago and coincides with the last cold period and the late glacial period. It does not include species characteristic of the Arat complex, but contains all the typical representatives of M. f. This complex is presented at the top. layers of caves Ignatievskaya, Serpievskaya-1 and Serpievskaya-2; in the grottoes Pryzhim 2, Ustinovo, Zotinsky. Steppe variant of M. f. found in below. layers of the cave Smelovskaya 2; he is geor. variation of the Arat complex. Its species composition includes the Pleistocene donkey. Disintegration of M. f. and its transformation into modern the Holocene fauna occurred very quickly - in 2-3 thousand years. They were caused by sharp fluctuations in climate at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene (12-9 thousand years ago). At the same time, several died out. species (giant deer, mammoth, cave hyena, cave lion, Pleistocene donkey, woolly rhinoceros), the rest reduced their ranges or became part of the Holocene fauna of Chel. areas.

Berezovsky mammoth. Reconstruction of a mammoth found in 1926 in Siberia. Zoo museum. Petersburg.

MAMMUT FAUNA -mammoth, musk ox, cave bear, deer, woolly rhinoceros and other animals that lived during the late glaciation (Pleistocene). When mammoths died out, to the south. a manufacturing economy emerged. For example, sites with the earliest elements of a productive economy of the Zarzi B type date back to 12000+400, Khotu - from 11860+80 to 9190±590, Belt - 11489±550, Jarmo - 11240 + 300, etc. Mammoths: Kunda (tusks) - 9780 + 260, Berelekh (cloth) - 10370 + 90, Bones (bone) - 11000 + 200, Yudinovka (bone) - 13650 + 200, 138300 + 850, Eliseevich (bone) -14470+180, 15600+200 thousand years ago. Apparently, the causes that caused the death of mammoths and the emergence of a new type of economy acted simultaneously, and they are associated with a sharp change in natural conditions, which also caused the melting of the glacier.

At the end of the glacial period in Europe, huge herds of animals grazed - p. deer, bison, horses (in the Irish deer, the width of the horns reached 4 m). Gone are the glaciers, the grass has become less. Mammoths and other large herbivores went for grass on p. They climbed to Taimyr, Chukotka, but everywhere instead of the fertile steppes and forest-steppes of the glacial area they were met by water Arctic Ocean... Large animals were doomed to death. Some of the hardiest specimens tried to adapt to new conditions, but they also died. One of the last youngsters froze to death on Taimyr 11,450 years ago. The deer managed to adapt to the conditions of the polar tundra, where they still live. There is less food for humans. Rhinoceros bones are disappearing at the sites of Europe, and the number of bones of hare, arctic fox and other small animals is increasing. Mammoth carcasses as a whole have been found more than once in the permafrost layer on p. Siberia. These carcasses were so well preserved that the dogs (and, according to Solzhenitsyn, the prisoners) ate mammoth meat with gusto. In 1910, the remains of one of these mammoths were brought by the expedition of the Academy of Sciences. A thick layer of subcutaneous fat and thick wool protected the mammoth from the polar cold. The mammoth's stomach was stuffed with the remains of sedge, caustic buttercup and other types of polar grasses and small shrubs. Of modern elephants, the mammoth is closest to the Indian. But the mammoth is more clumsy, its head is more massive, it has a steep hump above the front shoulder blades and huge tusks (incisors), often with spirally curved ends. The length of the tusk was sometimes more than 4 m, and the weight of a pair of tusks was approx. 300 kg. The body of the mammoth was completely covered with thick wool of black-brown or reddish-brown color, especially lush on the sides. A mane of thick, long red hair hung from her shoulders and chest. The skin taken from the animal took 30 m 2 . The weight of mammoth bones (without tusks) was 1500 kg. The weight of the mammoth itself reached 5 tons. Mammoths were excellently adapted to the conditions of the Arctic nature of that time. In flood meadows they found abundant food in the form of juicy green grass. According to scientists, one mammoth absorbed up to 100 kg per day. plant food. In winter, mammoths could forage from under the snow, raking it with their tusks. Interestingly, the end of the mammoth's trunk was arranged differently from that of an elephant. It had two palm-shaped protrusions for capturing low polar grass. The lifetime of mammoths is now determined quite accurately from C-14. In Berelekh on Indigirka, where a whole cemetery of mammoths was found, they died between 11830 ± 110 and 12240 ± 160 years ago. The oldest mammoths date back to ca. 50 thousand years ago.

A contemporary of the mammoth and his "eternal companion" was a hairy, or woolly, rhinoceros. On its muzzle grew a curved flat horn approx. 1 m. The second horn grew on the forehead.

There is still debate about what the third member of this community of fossil animals looked like. At first it was called the "cave lion". But this name is not accurate enough, since this huge cat combined in the structure of its body the signs of both a lion and a tiger. She possessed all the qualities of these predators, which made her a true scourge of all living things: the fury and strength of a lion, the dexterity, cunning and bloodthirstiness of a tiger. It was the true king of animals of that time, the lord of the extinct animal world of the ice age.

Along with mammoths and rhinos in the steppes and tundras, not only herds of s. deer, but also herds of wild horses and wild bulls. Together with them, in a bizarre mixture, animals of the deep Arctic and Central Asian deserts, mountainous regions and steppe spaces met: arctic fox and saiga antelope, snow leopard and red deer deer.