woolly mammoth extinction 10,000 years ago?

Hello ATS, this is my first post. Just came across something interesting, while reading Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson written in 1781. Remember that date it is important. Here is what he wrote:

"Our quadrupeds have been mostly described by Linnaeus and Mons. de Buffon. Of these the Mammoth, or big buffalo, as called by the Indians, must certainly have been the largest. Their tradition is, that he was carnivorous, and still exists in the northern parts of America.

A Mr. Stanley, taken prisoner by the Indians near the mouth of the Tanissee, relates, that, after being transferred through several tribes, from one to another, he was at length carried over the mountains west of the Missouri to a river which runs westwardly; that these bones abounded there; and that the natives described to him the animal to which they belonged as still existing in the northern parts of their country; from which description he judged it to be an elephant. Bones of the same kind have been lately found, some feet below the surface of the earth, in salines opened on the North Holston, a branch of the Tanissee, about the latitude of 36 1/2 degrees North. From the accounts published in Europe, I suppose it to be decided, that these are of the same kind with those found in Siberia. Instances are mentioned of like animal remains found in the more southern climates of both hemispheres; but they are either so loosely mentioned as to leave a doubt of the fact, so inaccurately described as not to authorize the classing them with the great northern bones, or so rare as to found a suspicion that they have been carried thither as curiosities from more northern regions. So that on the whole there seem to be no certain vestiges of the existence of this animal further south than the salines last mentioned. It is remarkable that the tusks and skeletons have been ascribed by the naturalists of Europe to the elephant, while the grinders have been given to the hippopotamus, or river-horse. Yet it is acknowledged, that the tusks and skeletons are much larger than those of the elephant, and the grinders many times greater than those of the hippopotamus, and essentially different in form."

So, in your opinions, do you think that the woolly mammoth may have survived a LOT longer that was previously thought? If this book is to be believed these animals were still living at the time of publication in 1781, when science puts it's extinction in North America at 12,000 years ago (this varies by source). Or is this another animal yet discovered, I ask this because the Indians described this animal as being carnivorous. Or is this simply a case of misidentification? This book seems to give credence to the cryptozoology theory that actually still may be around today in the frozen tundras of North America.

And on a more humorous note would that make Thomas Jefferson the first cryptozoologist?

That's pretty interesting. Maybe it was just a bigger breed of the buffalo? The carnivorous part was really
interesting.

It's entirely possible about Lincoln's account of the mammoth.

Louis L'Amour, the famous writer whom wrote most of his stories from legends wrote in Jubal Sackett (Sackett's #4) about a mammoth encounter. I think the encounter was in Colorado, but my memory may be wrong. But Louis L'Amour stated that the Indians had stated that there had been many mammoths before.

I seriously doubt if they were carnivores.

Rather unlikely actually as these animals are too hard to ignore and would leave visible traces. Also the last mammoth that got extinct were the dwarf mammoths on malta. The last mammoths in the americas got extinct around 3750 BC and on the wrangel island even up to 1,650 BC

The wording you quote sounds as though the book was written in the 1800's or early 1900's... so the information may not be current.

However, yes, there were mammoths and the Native Americans hunted them (and also scavenged them, as we know from pry marks on the bones.) The 10,000 year mark isn't a "it turned January 1 and all the mammoths dropped dead of 10,000 BC terror because the Mayans of the Incredibly Distant Past who flew off to the stars predicted the Great Earth Change." They went into a gradual decline as their habitat declined -- the Ice Age ended and as the Earth grew warmer, the vegetation that they COULD eat declined in their usual habitat areas.

There's a bunch of mammoth bones down here in Texas.

Native Americans have been in the Americas for over 12,000 years (20,000 years is the latest solid guess though some evidence exists that they may have been here for 30,000 years.)

Whether the tribes actually saw one is debatable, and right now I can't think of a convincing piece of rock art in the Americas that supports it. But we know from tool marks and hatchet marks that the people did indeed hunt mammoths for a long time.

The book was Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson written in 1781, so yes it is an old book. However in geological terms 229 years is a very short amount of time. And yes I do agree that they did not just up and vanish, but going extinct 10,000 years ago or alive and walking in 1781 are two totally different things. And with the re-discovery of the coelacanth, recent footage of what appears to be a Tasmanian Tiger, the possibility has to exist that these animals are still alive or at the very least a more recently extinct animal. Given the amount of area in Canada that is uninhabited and that is prime mammoth habitat, I think we have to remain open to the possibility of animals surviving out of the eyesight of humans.

I am a little skeptical of this myself but how cool would that be to see a mammoth in the wild?

reply to post by RussianScientists


Thomas Jefferson is not Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson wrote the book.

reply to post by bphi1908


Greenland absolutely isnt prime Mammoth habitat.

Originally posted by bphi1908
The book was Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson written in 1781, so yes it is an old book.

Are you reading the exact version that he wrote, or some later translation/rewritten stuff?

And with the re-discovery of the coelacanth, recent footage of what appears to be a Tasmanian Tiger, the possibility has to exist that these animals are still alive or at the very least a more recently extinct animal.

Please don't compare apples and oranges. The tasmanian tiger is a small being that could hide for a long time. It's not very long ago that we found another mammal the size of a deer in eastern asia, and that doesn't happen often. But a mammoth is *very* big. You could even make it out of Google Maps without problems, so if a sustainable population were present these days, it would have been spotted already.

I am a little skeptical of this myself but how cool would that be to see a mammoth in the wild?

Very cool, and I also believe that some scientific groups are trying to clone the genome.

hi, I'm new too welcome to ATS

A Mr. Stanley, taken prisoner by the Indians near the mouth of the Tanissee, relates, that, after being transferred through several tribes, from one to another, he was at length carried over the mountains west of the Missouri to a river which runs westwardly; that these bones abounded there; and that the natives described to him the animal to which they belonged as still existing in the northern parts of their country; from which description he judged it to be an elephant. Bones of the same kind have been lately found, some feet below the surface of the earth, in salines opened on the North Holston, a branch of the Tanissee,

This suggests the writer is using a second hand account so not something he himself heard directly

Instances are mentioned of like animal remains found in the more southern climates of both hemispheres; but they are either so loosely mentioned as to leave a doubt of the fact, so inaccurately described as not to authorize the classing them with the great northern bones, or so rare as to found a suspicion that they have been carried thither as curiosities from more northern regions. So that on the whole there seem to be no certain vestiges of the existence of this animal further south than the salines last mentioned.

The writer himself appears to doubt the validity of the second hand claim, it also appears that he is actually only referring to bones and tusks which we know are still found in remarkable condition

So, in your opinions, do you think that the woolly mammoth may have survived a LOT longer that was previously thought? If this book is to be believed these animals were still living at the time of publication in 1781

Do we know when Mr Stanley was 'captured'? The book may of been published in 1781 but that doesn't necessarily mean that the quoted Mr Stanley and his account was from 1781.

Personally I think it VERY unlikely that Mammoths existed much past the established date in areas that where populated, its possible that they hung on a bit longer in area's of low to zero population. Mammoths have been found in remarkable states of preservation and it is possible that people found what appeared to be 'fresh' mammoth remains and assumed that they were still alive.

i'm sure somwhere i read they had found 8,000 year old remains, here in Britain they brought it as close as 14,000 years ago, which on the grear cosmic scale isn't all that long.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

EDIT: Ok, got it, they lived up until about 4,500 years ago.

Awesome stuff. Any chance the Natives relaying the story mean "kills men" and it got interpreted as "carnivore"? Just a thought.

reply to post by illuminotreal


Thats probably a good point, modern day elphants would kill a man without a second thought, but not eat the corpse.

Just found another interesting tidbit:

A small population of woolly mammoths survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, until 3,750 BC,[10][11][12] while another remained on Wrangel Island, located in the Arctic Ocean, until 1700 BC. Possibly due to their limited food supply, these animals were a dwarf variety, thus much smaller than the original Pleistocene woolly mammoth.[13] However, the Wrangel Island mammoths should not be confused with the Channel Islands pygmy mammoth, Mammuthus exilis, which was a different species.

reply to post by bphi1908


I do not have the quote. But I remember reading that Native Americans were feeding dogs on Mammoth meat frozen in glaciers within the last couple hundred years. THAT maybe the source of the rumor.

reply to post by tomcat ha


Who said Greenland? North America, which is the region specifically brought up in the book, consists of The United States and Canada, not Greenland!

reply to post by Versa


Yes this is a second hand account, Thomas Jefferson wrote the book in 1780, when he was governor of Virginia, and the information could have been gathered anytime before the first publication. I was not reading this book hoping to come across anything relating to cryptozoology. It was actually kind of shocking to read this in an otherwise straightforward account of the conditions and census of the Virginia and the surrounding area.

While that quote you brought up does indicate doubt, he had to have trusted his sources enough to put in the book.I was particularly draw to this section of the book because of the Indian accounts of what they refer to as a large still existing carnivorous "buffalo". While the Indians called it a buffalo the man who was taken by the Indians calls it similar to an elephant. This was enough for me to throw it out there to the ATS community to see what other information there was on the subject.

But I appreciate the more detailed responses that dive further into the subject matter that you and a few others have given.

reply to post by bphi1908


The Pygmy Mammoth was the last know Species of Mammoth to Exist about 4,000 Years Ago on Wrangle Island before becomnig Exstinct .


" During the last glacial maximum (ca. 20 ka ago), environmental conditions on Wrangel Island proved capable of sustaining habitation by mammoths. Our data show that woolly mammoths persisted on Wrangel Island in the mid-Holocene, from 7390-3730 yr ago. 14C dating has shown that mammoths inhabited Wrangel Island for as long as 6000 yr after the estimated extinction of Mammuthus primigenius on the Siberian continent. "



www.radiocarbon.org...