Chapter 5: Yuribei Mammoth

How have they found the frozen body of the Yuribei female mammoth in the fine sediments, laid down in a lake, in 1979, in the bank of the Yuribei River, near the Arctic Coast of northwestern Siberia. How have they found it?

Vereshchagin and Tikhonov report about this in Cranium (1999:25) Fig. 32. The exposed head was found by Nenet Reindeer herders and destroyed. Later the remains were observed by the fishermen Khloponin and Berdov. A relatively small female of 10 – 14 years. Excavated at a depth of 8 m from the edge of a sandy loam bed on the right bank of the Yuribei River on the Gyda Peninsula. The geological age is 10,000 ± 70 years B.P. The carcass was lying on its back. At the time of our excavations in September of 1979, the hind end and the hind legs of the body remained intact (Fig. 32). The time of death (tentatively) was at the end of the warm season, perhaps September. In the stomach there was a greenish-yellow grassy mass. The excavations were conducted in September 1979 by a multidisciplinary expedition representing three institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The woolly hair covering was preserved on the belly, rump, tail, sides, and upper hind legs. The skin was well preserved only on the belly, from which it was removed as an intact piece, together with a mummified layer of abdominal muscle having the form of a thick black crust with an overall thickness of up to 40 – 45 mm. N. K. Vershchagin and A. N. Tikhonov (1999:22)

Professor V. V. Ukraintseva reports about this find: The Yuribei mammoth is the most westerly and the ‚youngest’ find of all known species of ‚mammoth’ faunal complex, discovered in Siberia. The animal remains lay in a hill on the right bank of the Yuribei River, 1.5-1.6 m from the slope edge near the very surface of the slope. The animal died 10,000 yr B.P. (Arslanov et al., 1980). Excavations undertaken showed that its wool coat, skeleton, gastrointestinal tract, tightly filled with plant remains, as well as other internal organs, were entirely preserved. Muscle tissues and hypoderm were almost wholly decomposed and their fragments showed up white on the terrace slope surface. The fore-part of stomach proved to be also slightly injured and its contents were exposed and stood out as a dark distinct spot against a background of light-colored slope deposits. Thorough examination showed that other sections of the intestinal tract had not been injured. This fact was vital to the examination of forage mass, which allowed determination of the composition of plants, which served as food for the animal and, hence, to paleobiogeographical reconstruction. V. V. Ukraintseva (1993:108-110).

Outcrop on bank of Yuribei River, 2.5 m to the right of the mammoth burial site

From: Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:111, 112)

Botanical analysis of the sample taken from the stomach showed that vegetational mass under examination was mainly composed of remains of herbaceous plants, namely, ground tissues, the vascular-fibrous bundles of stems and leaves (95 %); remains of trees, namely, sprigs crushed and cut, came to only 1 %; leaves of true and bog mosses totaled 0.5 %; plants remains badly decomposed and hence unidentifiable accounted for 3.5 % of the total (Gorlova, 1982).

The list of plants, determined by Stansheshcheva (1982) from plant fruits and macroremains, includes nine names only. These are sprigs, caps and leaves of Bryales; fruits and fruit fragments of the sedge (Carex spp.), fruits of two species of cotton grasses (Eriophorum sp. Brachyannthemum and Eriophorum sp.), seeds of the rush (Juncus sp. and Luzla sp.) one seed of the currant (Ribes sp.); one seed of Saxifraga sp.; one intact leaf and 20 more or less broken leaves of Dryas sp. The examination of the gastrointestinal contents, carried out by the author (VV. Ukraintseva) showed that palynological spectra of the stomach and colon contents are dominated by pollen of herbs; pollen of shrubs and low shrubs constitutes 8.87-9.5 %; spores of mosses range from 24 % to 44.0 %; pollen of tree species is represented by sporadic grains of the cedar pine (Pinus sibirica), the Siberian spruce (Picea obovata), woody birch (Betula sp.). The group of pollen of herbaceous plants is dominated by pollen of the grass (Poaceae) (67.9-87.3 %); pollen of the sedge (Cypersceae) accounts for 5.8-27 %; pollen of forbs is represented by rare grains of the pinks (Caryophyllacea, ranunculi Ranunculaceae), dryad ((Dryas octopetalla), valerian (Valeriana capitata), and wormwood (Artemisia spp.), totaling 5.6 %. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:113, 115

Shortly before its death, the animal grazed on bottomland tundra meadows, dominated by no less than four species of grasses with sedges, some specimens of forbs (Ranunculus sp., Saxifraga sp., Valeriana capitata, Artemisia spp. and others) and mosses of the ground layer being minor; shrub-moss bottomland meadows and grass-sedge (Arctophila fulva, Carex stans s.l.) associations of lake depressions. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:115, 118)

Pollen in Sediments

The spectra characterized above suggest that the enclosing deposits (depth interval 3.5-1.9 m) were formed under severe climatic conditions. It was just this bed of sand, interlayered with loam, in which the mammoth has been buried. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:118)

Palynological spectra of samples: (i) from the gastrointestinal tract; (ii) collected near the mammoth’s body (overlying and underlying deposits); (iii) from outcrop No. 1 suggest that the mammoth died in the period of deposition of the lower sandy loam (depth interval 1.90-1.50 m). It may have drowned in the Yuribei River or in a rather large lake. Under gravity the body gradually sank into the underlying sand, interbedded with loam; then it was buried under later deposits. It is noteworthy here that the beds of sand, sandy loam and even the upper clays were heavily deformed under the mammoth, whereas no deformation was noted in stripping of outcrop No 1, 2.5 m right of the burial site. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:128)

First stage coincides in time with the formation of the bed of sand interlayered with loam and the upper part of bed of laminated clay in depth interval 3.6-1.9 m. The date of mammoth’s death, 10,000 ± 70 yr B.P., suggests that the stage corresponds to the uppermost Paleoholocene (HL1, QIV). At that time, the terrain under consideration may have been occupied by polar desert and/or Arctic tundras, characterized by an extremely sparse vegetational cover. This was no doubt caused by severe climatic conditions. … At the stage, the northern boundaries of tree species were displaces far south, as suggested by rare pollen grains of the fir (Abies sibirica), spruce (Picea obovata), cedar pine (Pinus sibirica), woody birch (Betula tortuosa), transported to the area from afar.

Second stage coincides in time with the formation of the beds in depth interval 1.95-0.0 m (beds 1-6) and corresponds to the Eoholocene (HL2, Q2IV). It marks the emplacement of stable vegetational cover, related to a global improvement of climatic conditions (Khotinsky, 1977). The time of the mammoth’s death falls on the early subperiod of Boreal; when grass-sedge-forb, grass-forb and essential grass associations were widely developed on fresh alluvial deposits of the river valley of the terrain studied, under-shrub-moss meadows of terraces and lake depressions moss tundras appeared and developed late. Bush and low bush tundras bogged in the valley and drier in flat interfluves – were formed. The latter were common at the end of the second stage (spectra in depth interval 0.30-0.00 m) when climatic conditions may have been close or analogous to those of the present. At that time, meadow bogs as brakes of the sedge (Carex aquatilis ssp. stans), grass (Arctophila fulva), horse-tails (Equisetum ssp.) and other plants were formed on shores of lakes. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:129)

The present climate of Gydan Peninsula (where they found the mammoth) is very severe: mean January temperature is –26°, -30°C, the hardest frosts reach –57°, -60°C; summer is sunny and relatively warm, mean July temperature ranges from 4° to 11.5°C; the bulk of precipitation, 175-200 mm, falls in summer, and 20-120 mm falls during a longer cold period.

Paleobonanical data … indicate a climate like that of the present or somewhat warmer during the mammoth’s lifetime, i.e., 10,000 yr B.P.; this led to an advancement of larch and some large bushes (Ribes sp., Salix ssp.) along the river valley and its tributaries some what north of their present ranges. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:129, 131)

Like today, August may have been the warmest month in a year at that time; its mean month temperature did not exceed 8°, and mean January temperature may have been no lower than –28°C; mean annual air temperature did not rise in excess of –11°; the sum of air temperatures above 0°C constituted no lower than 600°. Ukraintseva, V.V. (1993:133)

Result

The burial site and the pollen, which the sediment-layers there contain, clearly show us: The mighty glacial rivers, loaded with rock-meal (very fine sand, ground-down rock) has carried the carcass of the young female Yuribei mammoth from areas further upstream. That is, by water, flowing from the easternmost part of the Scandinavian-West Siberian Ice Sheet, reaching to the northwestern part of Taimyr Peninsula or from local mountain glaciers. That was at a time, when it was very cold up there, like in northern Greenland and northern Ellesmere Island today. The Yuribei mammoth was then already dead and frozen stiff. It has not lived then. It would not have been able to live in the cold climate, which V.V. Ukraintseva has calculated. It would have starved, thirsted and frozen to death there.

The Yuribei mammoth lay in beds of sand and loam. These layers contained many redeposited pollen (p. 118). These pollen spectra suggest that the enclosing deposits (depth interval 3.5-1.9 m) were formed under severe climatic conditions. The mammoth died in the period of deposition of the lower sandy loam (depth interval 1.90-1.50 m). It may have drowned in the Yuribei River or in a rather large lake, A. A. Ukraintseva concludes. (p. 128).

The First Stage coincides in time with the formation of the bed of sand, interlayered with loam, and the upper part of the bed of laminated clay at a depth of 3.6-1.9 m. At that time, the terrain under consideration may have been occupied by polar deserts and/or Arctic tundras, charcterized by an extremely sparse vegetational cover. This was no doubt caused by severe climatic conditions. At that stage, the northern boundaries of tree species were displaced far south.

The Second Stage coincides with the formation of the beds in depth 1.95-0.0 m. and corresponds to the Early Holocene. The time of the mammoth’s death falls into the early boreal period, when grass-sedge-forb, grass-forb and essential grass associations were widely developed on fresh alluvial deposits of the river valley studied. Bush and low bush tundra grew in the valley. (p. 129).

The climate, in which the Yuribei mammoth is supposed to have lived: The temperature of the warmest month (August) did not exceed 8°C. Mean annual air temperature did not rise in excess of –11°C. The sum of the air temperature about 0°C was then at least 600°C. The mammoth has lived up there on an Arctic tundra (p. 133).

According to these findings, the Yuribei mammoth in northwestern Siberia, near the present Arctic Coast, has lived at the beginning of the Holocene, on an Arctic tundra. It has lived there at a temperature sum with days above 0°C of about 600°. At such a temperature, no mammoth is able to live. And at such a temperature not even the bison is able to live. It is far too cold. The summer is too cool, and the time, in which the plants are able to grow, far too short. It would have starved, thirsted, and frozen there to death. Any assertion to the contrary is only wishful thinking.

And before that: Shortly before the Yuribei mammoth is supposed to have died on the Arctic tundra, the climate was still colder. It was polar desert: a climate, as we find it now on the Canadian High Arctic Islands. No elephant is able to live on such a polar desert. This also shows us, that there must be something seriously wrong with these radiocarbon dates. Because they do give a date, at which the mammoth was not able to live up there at all. Because the mammoth has lived up there also long before that, for thousands of years, at a time, when it was so cold up there that only polar desert was able to grow. That makes no sense at all!

The Yuribei mammoth has lived in northwestern Siberia, near the present Arctic Coast in a mild temperate climate, without an arctic winter, without ice and snow. It has lived up there before the global Flood of Noah’s days in the year 2370 B.C.E., according to Bible chronology. And this global Flood has killed and buried it. The glacial rivers have later on, when then climate had become very cold, carried it further down-river and covered it with their rock-meal (silt, very fine sand). Its burial site is secondary, not primary. That is, it has not lived and died, where they found it. This, also the pollen in the sand at the burial site show us.