The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia
The north of Yakutia has long been known to be an immense storehouse of frozen disjointed bones of many hundreds of thousands of large Pleistocene mammals—mammoths, horses, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, musk-oxen— “horned cattle”, as the first Russian travellers called them. Such knowledge had a comme...
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1974
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/s0032247400031296 2024-03-03T08:48:13+00:00 The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia Vereshchagin, N. K. 1974 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400031296 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400031296 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Polar Record volume 17, issue 106, page 3-12 ISSN 0032-2474 1475-3057 General Earth and Planetary Sciences Ecology Geography, Planning and Development journal-article 1974 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400031296 2024-02-08T08:41:00Z The north of Yakutia has long been known to be an immense storehouse of frozen disjointed bones of many hundreds of thousands of large Pleistocene mammals—mammoths, horses, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, musk-oxen— “horned cattle”, as the first Russian travellers called them. Such knowledge had a commercial value, of whichmore will be said below, for the quarrying of mammoth ivory has gone on for many centuries. In quality these tusks, which have lain in frozen ground for tens of millennia, are as good as those of modern African and Indian elephants and are sometimes two or three times larger. For naturalists, the greatest interest lies in the discovery of whole frozen bodies or of skulls and complete skeletons. Study of the position of these bodiesand their morphology and of the contents of their stomachs and intestines may answer the age-old question of why the mammoth (or woolly elephant), together with this rich assemblage of large herbivores, died out. Would even a partial restoration of such previously abundant life be possible there today? Article in Journal/Newspaper Polar Record Yakutia Siberia Cambridge University Press Indian Polar Record 17 106 3 12 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Cambridge University Press |
op_collection_id |
crcambridgeupr |
language |
English |
topic |
General Earth and Planetary Sciences Ecology Geography, Planning and Development |
spellingShingle |
General Earth and Planetary Sciences Ecology Geography, Planning and Development Vereshchagin, N. K. The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia |
topic_facet |
General Earth and Planetary Sciences Ecology Geography, Planning and Development |
description |
The north of Yakutia has long been known to be an immense storehouse of frozen disjointed bones of many hundreds of thousands of large Pleistocene mammals—mammoths, horses, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, musk-oxen— “horned cattle”, as the first Russian travellers called them. Such knowledge had a commercial value, of whichmore will be said below, for the quarrying of mammoth ivory has gone on for many centuries. In quality these tusks, which have lain in frozen ground for tens of millennia, are as good as those of modern African and Indian elephants and are sometimes two or three times larger. For naturalists, the greatest interest lies in the discovery of whole frozen bodies or of skulls and complete skeletons. Study of the position of these bodiesand their morphology and of the contents of their stomachs and intestines may answer the age-old question of why the mammoth (or woolly elephant), together with this rich assemblage of large herbivores, died out. Would even a partial restoration of such previously abundant life be possible there today? |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Vereshchagin, N. K. |
author_facet |
Vereshchagin, N. K. |
author_sort |
Vereshchagin, N. K. |
title |
The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia |
title_short |
The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia |
title_full |
The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia |
title_fullStr |
The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia |
title_full_unstemmed |
The mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east Siberia |
title_sort |
mammoth “cemeteries” of north-east siberia |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
1974 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400031296 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400031296 |
geographic |
Indian |
geographic_facet |
Indian |
genre |
Polar Record Yakutia Siberia |
genre_facet |
Polar Record Yakutia Siberia |
op_source |
Polar Record volume 17, issue 106, page 3-12 ISSN 0032-2474 1475-3057 |
op_rights |
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400031296 |
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Polar Record |
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17 |
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106 |
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3 |
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12 |
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