3600 Year Old Mammoths

A mammoth is any of a number of an extinct genus of proboscidean (of which the elephant remains), often with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch from 4.8 million years ago to around 3,600 years ago.

Mammoths and their relatives the mastodons are widely considered to be an iconic example of an extinct mammal. Most mammoths died out at the end of the last Ice Age, however, the mammoths of Wrangel Island became extinct only around 1700 to 1500 BC.

Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial.