Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) from the Sellyakh Locality
Plotnikov V.V., Mashchenko E.N., Boeskorov G.G., Protopopov A.V., Klimovsky A.I., Kolesov S.D., Kolodeznikov I.I.,van der Plicht J.
Data on a mammoth’s fauna of ‘Sellyakh’ site, located in Ust-Yansky Ulus, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) are presented in the article. The site has been discovered in 2012 by local people with the right to collect mammoth tusks on the right bank of the river Sellyakh, which flow into the Sellyakh Bay. The site is characterized mainly by accumulation of fossil remains of the Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799). Remains of other large mammals of the mammoth fauna are presented by singular finds of three species – Equus lenensis (Russanov, 1968), Bison sp., Coelodonta antiquitatis (Blumenbach, 1799). Sixty two bones belonging to different parts of skeletons of twenty mammals of different age have been collected at the site. Paleontological material collected on the Sellyakh site has been examined according to standard procedures used for morphometric studies of large mammals. Measurements have been carried out with a tape measure and an electronic caliper. Size and age groups of the mammals have been identified with the help of materials from the work of E.N. Mashchenko, 1992. Preliminary data on the age and sex of the mammoths died in Sellyakh are similar to the age and sex of a family group of modern African elephants Loxodonta africana (Blumenbach, 1797). The results of radiocarbon dating conducted in Groningen (the Netherlands) correlate with the end of the Late Pleistocene.
Key words: woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799), Late Pleistocene, Sellyakh River, group composition.
Science and Education, 2015, No.1, pp.55-60