Mammoth calf from Bolshoi Lyakhovskii Island (New Siberian Islands, Arctic Siberia)

Maschenko E.N., Tikhonov A.N., MacPhee R.D.E.

P. 79-88

For the first time, the skull of a mammoth calf of approximately two years is described. This skull comes from Bolshoi Lyakhovskii Island in the New Siberian group, which is the island closest to the mainland. The radiocarbon date of this find, 24,700±170 yrbp (not corrected 13C), places the specimen just before the last glacial maximum in Siberia and suggests the absence of oceanic glaciation in this area. The finite date record for mammoths in the New Siberian Islands is compared to that for the immediately adjacent mainland (lower Lena River/Lena Delta region).DOI: 10.15298/rusjtheriol.4.1.06

• Arai K., Tikhonov A.N. & Abramov A.V. 1996. [Finds of woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius (Proboscidea, Elephantidae) from the Bolshoi Lyakhovskii Island (East Siberia)] // Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta RAN. Т.270. P.187-190 [in Russian].
• Eales N.B. 1926. The anatomy of the head of foetal African elephant, Elephas africanus (Loxodonta africana) // Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol.54. Part 3. P.491-551.
• Jachman H. 1988. Estimating age in African elephants: a revision of Lows' molar evaluation technique // African Journal of Ecology. Vol.26. No.1. P.51-56.
• Geyh M.A. & Schleicher H. 1990. Absolute Age Determination: Physical and Chemical Dating Methods and Their Application. Berlin-Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag. 736 p.
• Guthrie RD: 2004. Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea Island. Nature. Vol.429. No.6993. P.746-749
• Kuzmina I.E. & Mashchenko E.N. 1999. [Age morphological changes in the skull and skeleton of mammoth calves of the Russian Plain] // Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta RAN. Т.275. P.51-120 [in Russian].
• Laws R.M. 1966.Age criteria for the African elephant Loxodonta africana // East Wildlife Journal. Vol.4. No.1. P.1-37.
• Lozhkin A.V. 1977. [Radiocarbon dates of the Upper Pleistocene deposits of New Siberian Islands and the age of the Edoma Svita of North-East of the USSR] // Doklady AN SSSR. Vol.235. No.2. P.435-437 [in Russian].
• Lucert P.W. 1996. Ontogenetic evidence for incisor homologies in proboscides // Shoshani J. & Tassy P. (eds.). Proboscidea. Evolution and Palaeoecology of Elephants and Their Relatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. P.24-31.
• MacPhee R.D.E, Tikhonov A.N., Mol D., Marliave Ch. de, Plicht H. van der, Greenwood A.D., Flemming C. & Agenbroad L. 2002. Radiocarbon chronologies and extinction dynamics of the late Quaternary megafauna of the Taimyr Peninsula, Russian Federation // Journal of Archaeological Science. Vol.29. No.9. P.1017-1042.
• Mashchenko E.N. 2001. [Morphology of the teeth of first generation in genera Mammuthus and Archidiskodon in connection with the evolution of elephants of the mammoth lineage] // Rosanov A.Yu. (ed.). [Mammoth and its Environs: 200 Years of Study]. Moscow: Geos. P.82-111 [in Russian].
• Mashchenko E. N. 2002. Individual development, biology and evolution of the woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799) // Cranium. Vol.19. No.1. P.1-120.
• Pitulko V.V., Nikolsky P.A., Girya E. Yu., Basilyan A.E., Tumskoy V.E., Koulakov S.A., Astakhov S.N., Pavlova E.Yu. & Anisimov M.A. 2004. The Yana RHS site: humans in the Arctic before the Last Glacial Maximum // Science. Vol.303. No.5654. P.52-56.
• Roth L.V. & Shoshani J. 1988. Dental identification and age determination in Elephas maximus // Journal of Zoology. Vol.214. No.4. P.567-588.
• Sikes S.K. 1966. The African Elephant Loxodonta africana: A field method for the estimation of age // Journal of Zoology. London. Vol.154. No.10. P.279-295.
• Sher A.V. & Garutt V.E. 1985a. [About methodic of molars generation identification in extinct elephants] // Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta AN SSSR. T.131. P.93-103 [in Russian].
• Sher A.V. & Garutt V.E. 1985b. [New data about morphology of elephant's molars] // Doklady AN SSSR. Т.285. No.1. P.221-225 [in Russian].
• 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. Vol.24. No.5-6. P.533-569.
• Tikhonov A.N. 1996. [Woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius (Proboscidea, Elephantidae) from Bolshoi Lyakhovskii Island, East Siberia] // Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta RAN. Т.270. P.167-186 [in Russian].
• Urbanas E.V. 1980. [Teeth of the mammoth from the Late Paleolithic sites of Kostenki settlement, Voronezh Province] // Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta AN SSSR. T.93. P.81-90 [in Russian].
• Vereshchagin N.K. 1977. [Berelekh cemetery of mammoths] // Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta RAN. Т.72. P.1-76 [in Russian].
• Volossovich K.A. 1914. [Mammoth from Bolshoi Lyakhovskii Island (New Siberian Islands)] // Zapiski Imperatorskogo Mineralogicheskogo Obshchestva, Seriya 2. Part 50. P.305-338 [in Russian].
• Zalenskii V.V. 1903. [Osteological and odontological investigations on mammoth (Elephas primigenius Blum.) and elephants (El. indicus L. and El. africanus Blum.)] // Zalenskii V.V. (ed.). [Scientific Results of the Expedition sent by the Imperial Academy of Sciences for the Excavation of Mammoth Found on the Berezovka River in 1901]. Sankt-Peterburg. T.1. P.1-124 [in Russian].