A group of scientists from Australia, Canada, Norway, the Russian Federation and the United States have found evidence for a new cause of the extinction of ecosystems in the Late Pleistocene.
Experts assure that they have new facts at their disposal that tell about how mammoths could have died.
So, researchers believe that the extinction of the Pleistocene ecosystems was preceded by the melting of permafrost in Siberia and North America. Thus, the air humidity became much higher, and the animals could no longer graze on their usual pastures - they were replaced by peat bogs and swamps. As a result of such natural changes, populations of large animals were divided, as a result of which mammoths began to live according to new laws.
As evidence of their conclusions, scientists cite the result of radiocarbon analysis of the bones of herbivores, including ancient bison and horses, which were also part of the Pleistocene ecosystems. Among other things, experts tried to understand why the Pleistocene systems in Africa managed to remain practically unchanged. Scientists believe this was due to the monsoons carrying moisture from the subequatorial region.
Also, scientists have come to another interesting conclusion. It turns out that the modern tundra area was one of the most densely populated. Here, for every square kilometer of tundra-steppe, there was about 10 tons of animal biomass - for example, a mammoth, six horses, five bison and ten deer lived on a relatively small area.
