Once upon a time, whole herds of amazing animals - mammoths - roamed our planet. Covered with dark brown fur, mammals very similar to elephants were more than 5 meters in height, and they weighed about 10-12 tons. The length of the fur of these animals reached 90 cm (in winter), and the length of the tusks - about 4 m.
The remains of mammoths are not so rare. In addition to bones, sometimes even perfectly preserved carcasses of mammoths are found, which for a long time lay at depths of many meters under a layer of permafrost. And until now, scientists are haunted by the riddle: why did mammoths disappear as a species, and what was the reason?
There are a great many hypotheses explaining the death of hairy giants, and for a long time it was believed that mammoths were exterminated by people. Later, the cause was sought in changing climatic conditions, in the collision of a comet with the Earth, as well as in the spread of a deadly virus among mammoths. But none of these theories have yet been officially confirmed.
Recently, Swedish scientists led by Anders Angerbjom conducted research on the remains of mammoths that lived on Wrangel Island (Arctic Ocean). The area of this island is small, and scientists assumed that close inbreeding of mammoths caused them to lose genetic diversity, and as a result, to extinction. But analysis of mitochondrial DNA showed that exactly the indicator of stability of the genetic diversity was normal, and several individuals even lived on the island about 400 years ago! But the first people on the island appeared about a hundred years after the death of the last mammoth. So, people were not to blame for their disappearance, then what?
At one time, the "comet" version of the death of woolly mammoths occupied a leading position. That is, it was very convenient to assume that the explosion of a comet over the territory of America led to the extinction of some species of fauna, which included mammoths and mastodons, as well as the Clovis civilization (the first developed human culture).
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As the main evidence of a cometary explosion that once took place on our Earth, the discovery in the layers of the earth's rocks corresponding to the catastrophe, which include iridium and titanium, is cited. As you know, iridium is an element that is very rare on earth, but comets and meteorites contain quite a lot of it. A more thorough analysis showed that such formations are also found in sediments characteristic of wetlands, where mammoths could not live. At the same time, the same balls were found in Chile, but the parts of the comet that exploded in Canada simply could not be thrown by the explosion to such a huge distance.
Not only the death of mammoths, but also their "burials" present scientists with complex riddles. Mammoth tusks are a rather valuable commodity, and there is always a demand for them. This is why collecting mammoth bones is quite a lucrative business. So, tusk collectors very often find something to profit from on the steep banks, where the collapsed areas reveal the remains of mammoths. The smell is then disgusting, because the flesh that has been preserved for centuries begins to decay. Logically speaking, the fallen mammoth would be immediately eaten by predators, and the bones would not have been a whole skeleton. Everything speaks in favor of the fact that the dead animal was immediately covered with earth, and sometimes very thoroughly.
They often find large piles of gigantic skeletons, and in well-preserved carcasses, they find the remains of undigested food in the stomach or even in the mouth. That is, apparently, the death of animals came instantly.
The peoples of the North have beliefs and legends associated with mammoths. For example, in Yakutia, it is believed that only a mammoth tusk found on the surface of the earth can be taken without fear. And those who deliberately dig the earth in search of carcasses and tusks face various troubles.
Of course, the fact that mammoths were found at a depth of many meters served the fact that they began to be considered underground animals. Samoyeds and Evenks believed in this. In the stories of the Nenets, there are references to the roar of the Mammoth, which he emits from the ground, and sometimes from the bottom of reservoirs. Ice drifts, coastal landslides and even earthquakes were attributed to the mammoth. Estonian and Russian peasants also believed that the Mammoth lived underground. The Yakuts associated the Mammoth with the water element, considering him the spirit of water. There is a widespread legend that an ordinary elk turns into a mammoth by old age.
"Earth deer" (the same mammoths) were grazed by a white-eyed chud: a mysterious underground people. In the legends of Siberian Tatars, Ob Ugrians, and Russians, which were collected by P. Gorodtsov, it is said that mammoths exist even now (again, underground). And that they are gentle and gentle animals.
Cases of encounters with a mammoth are described and told repeatedly. For example, in 1581, Yermak's warriors met huge hairy elephants in the wilds of the taiga. According to the guides, these "elephants" are cherished in case there are no other game animals in abundance.
Military pilots in 1944, flying over Siberia, noticed a herd of huge woolly animals, which wandered in a chain through the deep snow. Another case took place in 1956, when a teacher in one of the taiga villages on the Taz Upland, while picking mushrooms, saw a mammoth that had walked about ten meters from her.
And a relatively recent meeting with giant giants took place in 1978 on the Indigirka River, where an artel of gold miners was washing gold. People heard strange sounds coming from the river. Having crept up, the prospectors saw a herd of mammoths who came to a watering hole …
The relationship between the water element and the mammoth has been emphasized repeatedly. As it turned out relatively recently, the closest relatives of woolly giants, elephants, can also conquer many kilometers of the water surface. Therefore, some experts put forward an incredible assumption: what if mammoths completely switched to an underwater lifestyle? And the thin snake neck, so often found in eyewitness accounts of the next Loch Nessie, is nothing more than the trunk of a huge hairy beast raised above the water, which preferred the water depths to the earthly firmament.