Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:04:50.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Collection of radiocarbon dates on the mammoths (Mammuthus Primigenius) and other genera of Wrangel Island, northeast Siberia, Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Sergey L. Vartanyan ,
Khikmat A. Arslanov ,
Juha A. Karhu ,
Göran Possnert  and
Leopold D. Sulerzhitsky
Sergey L. Vartanyan*
Affiliation:
P.O. BOX 259 197110, St. Petersburg, Russia
Khikmat A. Arslanov
Affiliation:
Geographical Institute, St. Petersburg State University, Sredniy Pr. 41, 199004, St. Petersburg, Russia
Juha A. Karhu
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Helsinki, P.O. BOX 64, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland
Göran Possnert
Affiliation:
Tandem Laboratory, Uppsala University, P.O. BOX 529, S-75120 Uppsala, Sweden
Leopold D. Sulerzhitsky
Affiliation:
Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pyzhevsky Per. 7, 119017, Moscow, Russia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail address:[email protected] (S.L. Vartanyan).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We present and discuss a full list of radiocarbon dates for woolly mammoth and other species of the Mammoth fauna available from Wrangel Island, northeast Siberia, Russia. Most of the radiocarbon dates are published here for the first time. Of the124 radiocarbon dates on mammoth bone, 106 fall between 3700 and 9000 yr ago. We believe these dates bracket the period of mammoth isolation on Wrangel Island and their ultimate extinction, which we attribute to natural causes. The absence of dates between 9–12 ka probably indicates a period when mammoths were absent from Wrangel Island. Long bone dimensions of Holocene mammoths from Wrangel Island indicate that these animals were comparable in size to those on the mainland; although they were not large animals, neither can they be classified as dwarfs. Occurrence of mammoth Holocene refugia on the mainland is suggested. Based on other species of the Mammoth fauna that have also been radiocarbon on Wrangel Island, including horse, bison, musk ox and woolly rhinoceros, it appears that the mammoth was the only species of that fauna that inhabited Wrangel Island in the mid-Holocene.

Keywords

BeringiaWrangel IslandMammothMammoth faunaRadiocarbon
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , July 2008 , pp. 51 - 59
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arppe, L., Karhu, J.A., Vartanyan, S., (2006). Paleoenvironmental change on Wrangel Island, NE Siberia, recorded in the 87Sr/86Sr of mammoth skeletal remains.. The Geological Society of America annual meeting, 22.-25.10.2006. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 38(7), 395.Google Scholar
Arslanov, Kh. A., Svezhentsev, , Yu, S., (1993). An improved method for radiocarbon dating fossil bones.. Radiocarbon 35, (3) 387–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arslanov, Kh., Cook, G., Gulliksen, S., Harkness, D., Kankainen, T., Scott, M., Vartanyan, S., Zaitseva, G., (1998). Consensus dating of mammoth remains from Wrangel Island.. Radiocarbon 40, (1) 289–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Averianov, A.O., Vartanyan, S.L., Garutt, V.E., (1995). Small mammoth Mammuthus primigenius vrangeliensis Garutt, Averianov et Vartanian, 1993 from Wrangel Island, North-East Siberia Studies on Pleistocene and Modern Mammals.. Proceedings of Zoological Institute of RAS 263, 184–199. St. Petersburg (in Russian).Google Scholar
Fairbanks, R.G., (1989). A 17,000-year glacio-eustatic sea level record: influence of glacial melting rates on the Younger Dryas event and deep-ocean circulation.. Nature 342, 637–642.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garutt, V.E., Averianov, A.O., Vartanyan, S.L., (1993). About systematic of Holocene population of mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbash, 1799) of Wrangel Island, North-East Siberia.. Doklady RAN 332, (6) 799–801. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Gualtieri, L., Vartanyan, S., Brigham-Grette, J., Anderson, P., (2003). Pleistocene raised marine deposits on Wrangel Island, Northern Siberia and implications for the presence of an East Siberian ice sheet.. Quaternary Research 59, 399–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gualtieri, L., Vartanyan, S., Brigham-Grette, J., Anderson, P., (2005). Evidence for an ice-free Wrangel Island, northeast Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum.. Boreas 34, (3) 264–273.Google Scholar
Guthrie, D., (2004). Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene mammoth stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island.. Nature 429, 746–749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanov, V.F., (1986). Quaternary Sediments of the Coast of East Chukotka. Far East Scientific Center AS of USSR.. Vladivostok, (in Russian).Google Scholar
Lavrov, A.V., Sulerzhitsky, L.D., (1992). Mammoths: radiocarbon data about timing of existence.. Sukachev, V.N. Century Dynamics of Biogeocenoses. 10-th memorial of Acad Nauka, Moscow.46–51. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Lister, A., (1993). Mammoth in miniature.. Nature 362, 288–289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Long, A., Sher, A., Vartanyan, S., (1994). Holocene mammoth dates.. Nature 369, 364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lozhkin, A.V., Anderson, P.M., Vartanyan, S.L., Brown, T.A., Belaya, B.V., Kotov, A.N., (2001). Late Quaternary paleoenvironments and modern pollen data from Wrangel Island (Northern Chukotka).. Quaternary Science Reviews 20, 217–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacPhee, R., Tikhonov, A., Mol, D., de Marliave, C., van der Plicht, H., Greenwood, A., Flemming, C., Agenbroad, L., (2002). Radiocarbon chronologies and extinction dynamics of the Late Quaternary mammalian Megafauna of the Taimyr Peninsula, Russian federation.. Journal of Archaeological Science 29, 1017–1042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mashchenko, E.N., (1992). Structure of Mammoth herd from Sevsk Late Pleistocene site (Bryansk region) History of large mammals and birds of Northern Asia. Proceedings of Zoological Institute of RAS, 246. St. Petersburg.. 41–59. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Mochanov, Yu. A., (1977). The most Ancient Stages of Human Colonization of North-East Asia.. Nauka, Novosibirsk. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Nikolskiy, P.A., Basilyan, A.E., (2003). Sviatoy Nos Cape - a key section of Pleistocene deposits for northern Yana-Indigirka Lowland.. Nikolskiy, P.A., Pitulko, V.E. Natural History of Russian Eastern Arctic in Pleistocene and Holocene GEOS, Moscow.5–26. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Sher, A.V., (1997a). Nature reconstruction in East-Siberian Arctic at Pleistocene–Holocene border and its role in mammal extinction and forming of modern ecosystems (Announcement 1).. Criosphere of the Earth 1, (1) 21–29. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Sher, A.V., (1997b). Nature reconstruction in East-Siberian Arctic at Pleistocene–Holocene border and its role in mammal extinction and forming of modern ecosystems (Announcement 2).. Criosphere of the Earth 1, (2) 3–11. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Sher, A.V., Kuzmina, S.A., Kuznetsova, T.V., Sulerzhitsky, L.D., (2005). New insights into the Weichselian environment and climate of the East Siberian Arctic, derived from fossil insects, plants, and mammals.. Quaternary Science Reviews 24, 533–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sulerzhitsky, L.D., (1995). Features of radiocarbon geochronology of mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) in Siberia and the North of East Europe Studies on Pleistocene and Modern Mammals.. Proceedings of Zoological Institute of RAS 263, 163–183. St. Petersburg (in Russian).Google Scholar
Sulerzhitsky, L.D., Romanenko, F.A., (1997). Age and distribution of Mammoth Fauna in Asian Arctic.. Kryosphera Zemli 1, (4) 12–19. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Tikhonov, A., Vartanyan, S., Joger, U., (1999). Woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) from Wrangel Island.. Kaupia 9, 187–192.Google Scholar
Tomirdiaro, S.V., (1976). Arctic loess-ice plain as American-Asian bridge and its’ destruction in the Holocene.. Kontrimavichus, V.L. Beringia in Cenozoic. Proceedings of All-union Symposium “Biringia and its’ role for development of Holarctic flora and fauna” FESC AS USSR, Vladivostok.78–88. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Vartanyan, S.L., (2004). Palaeogeography of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene of the Wrangel Island territory. Summary of Candidate of Science Dissertation.. Saint-Petersburg State University Press, Saint-Petersburg. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Vartanyan, S., Pitul`ko, V., (1999). Landscapes, animals and humans of the Siberian Arctic: the past 30,000 Years Abstracts of the 2nd International Mammoth Conference, Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Rotterdam.. 73–74.Google Scholar
Vartanyan, S.L., Arslanov, Kh. A., Tertychnaya, T.V., Chernov, S.B., (1992). Radiocarbon age of Holocene mammoths from Wrangel Island.. Sukachev, V.N. Century Dynamics of Biogeocenoses. 10-th memorial of Acad 52–53. (in Russian).Google Scholar
Vartanyan, S.L., Garutt, V.E., Sher, A.V., (1993). Holocene dwarf mammothsfrom Wrangel Island in the Siberian Arctic.. Nature 362, 337–340.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vartanyan, S.L., Arslanov, Kh. A., Tertychnaya, T.V., Chernov, S.B., (1995). Radiocarbon dating evidence for mammoths on Wrangel Island, Arctic Ocean, until 2000 BC.. Radiocarbon 37, (1) 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ukraintseva, V.V., (1993). Vegetation cover and environment of the “mammoth epoch” in Siberia.. Mammoth Site of Hot Springs Publication, Hot Springs, S. Dakota. 309 p.Google Scholar
Yesner, D., Veltre, D., Crossen, K., Graham, R., (2005). 5,700-year-old Mammoth remains from Qagnax Cave, Pribilof Islands, Alaska World of Elephants. Short Papers and Abstracts of the 2nd International Congress.. Mammoth Site Scientific Papers 4, Mammoth Site of Hot Springs Publication, Hot Springs, South Dakota.200–204.Google Scholar