Spatiotemporal patterns of existence and extinction for woolly mammoth in Siberia in the last 50,000 years

Abstract A database of ca. 970 radiocarbon dates on bones, teeth, and tusks of the woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius Blum.) from Siberia was created in order to understand the spatiotemporal distribution of this species over the last 50,000 14 C years (BP). Mammoths populated all parts of Siberia until ca. 12,000 BP. After that, a few refugia exited south of ca. 60°N at ca. 10,600–12,000 BP, and in the northern part of mainland Siberia mammoths survived until ca. 9700 BP. At ca. 9500–3700 BP, they existed only in today’s insular regions such as the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island in the High Arctic. The relationship between the dynamics of mammoth populations and climatic fluctuations is complicated. In the warmer intervals (interstadials), the number of mammoths in Siberia was generally slightly larger than in the colder times (stadials); however, the difference is often not significant. The connection between the dynamics of mammoth populations and climatic fluctuations in Siberia is therefore complicated and non-linear.