From 40,000 years ago, as vindicated in numerous caves, the woolly mammoths were one of the most popular subjects of neolithic artists. Its tusks were 15 feet long, and some were as large as 7 tonnes. On top of this, their long, shaggy coats, and famous tusks. Woolly mammoths were able to ward off hungry saber-tooth tigers, human hunters, predators and last tens of thousands of years.
Despite a kill ensuring homo sapiens, and there families survival. Mammoths were capable reproducers, and hunters earning the international acclimation and research we give them today. For humans, hunting one meant years they could eat, make a warm house, create fur pelts and so on. As massive as they were, numerous feet, and many tons—woolly mammoths figured on the lunch menu of early homo sapiens. When humans did have enough courage to hunt one, we converted there bodies for their warm pelts, as well as their tasty, fatty meat and bones for tools and shelter.

Hunting one:
After a lucky neolithic hunting session, some human groups in central and eastern Europe used the conveniently big bones to build themselves huts. The Mezinian culture, found in present-day Ukraine, used mammoth bones arranged geometrically to build the outer walls of their dwellings. In the nearby Danube corridor, there are mammoth bone accumulations that were probably started by giant hunting, fishing and game parties. The key point has been made in developing civilizations; that having the patience, planning, skills, and cooperation to down a woolly mammoth was paramount.

Cave drawings and different types:

From 30,000 to 10,000 years ago, and before the great event, woolly mammoths were one of the most popular subjects of neolithic artists. But what we call the woolly mammoth was actually a species of genus Mammuthus. Mammuthus primigenius to be exact. It was not the only woolly prehistoric mammal as well, the woolly rhino, aka Coelodonta, also roamed the plains of Pleistocene Eurasia, Because of its one-ton size many found it easier to handle. A dozen other larger mammoth species existed in North America and Eurasia during the Pleistocene, some as big as 10-15 tonnes.

Biology: skin and fur

Woolly mammoths did share some solid characteristics with other warmed blooded hairy Pleistocene critters. They had four inches of solid fat underneath their skin, an added layer of insulation that helped to keep them toasty in the severest climatic conditions. Based on what scientists have learned from well-preserved individuals, woolly mammoth fur ranged in color from blond to dark brown, much like human hair.

Habitat, prey and predators:
The woolly mammothʼs habitat, is sometime called mammoth steppe. However between 42,000 and 6,000 years ago, a staggering 90% of areas suitable to mammoths disappeared. It consisted of the arid steppe-tundras. At one time spanning from north Canada, across Alaska and Siberia, to the west of Europe, and as far south as Spain. Mammoths were specialized foragers who stuck to their own ecological niche eating plants killed off by the winter frost, which they uncovered from beneath the snow and ice by using their tusks or by trampling. Sharing the broader prehistoric landscape with these mammoths were other herbivores such as bison, aurochs, and the deer family. Some of the local predators that were around at the time were prehistoric wolves, as well as hulking cave bears and cave lions, alongside their non-cave counterparts.

Extinction and Siberias Wrangel Island
Not built to handle changing earth conditions. Pretty much all the worldʼs mammoths were gone by the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. The exception was a small population of woolly mammoths that lived on Wrangel Island, off the coast of Siberia, until 1700 BCE. Since they subsisted on limited resources, Wrangel Island mammoths were much smaller than their woolly relatives and are often referred to as dwarf elephants.

Who would have thought something so popular, for thousands of millennia, became estranged so long.

Bibliography: Will findings recreate the woolly mammoth? Archived 11 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 20 November 2008

Lister, A. M.; Sher, A. V.; Van Essen, H.; Wei, G. (2005). “The pattern and process of mammoth evolution in Eurasia”. Quaternary International. 126–128: 49–64. Bibcode:2005QuInt.126…49L. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.014.

Cohen, C. (2002). The Fate of the Mammoth: Fossils, Myth, and History. University of Chicago Press. pp. 197–198. ISBN 978-0-226-11292-3. Retrieved 10 August 2015. “eskimo mammoth ivory.”

Groeneveld, E. (2023, March). Woolly Mammoth. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Woolly_Mammoth/