The Woolly Mammoth has been extinct for a long time, but until now experts still don't have a definitive reason why they all died.
Some say climate change is responsible however, in an article by the Tech Times, it was reported that human hunting is actually the one responsible for the extinction of the Woolly Mammoths.
Scientists have long tried to figure out the exact cause of the disappearance of one of the largest mammals to ever walk the Earth. Although some experts do believe that drastic changes in the climate was responsible, recent evidence suggests that mankinds' "overhunting" was the real culprit.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered chemical clues found in the tusks of juvenile mammoths that seem to point a sudden decrease in the animal's weaning age — the period when a mammoth calf stops nursing.
According to Michael Cherney, a graduate student at Michigan and Daniel Fisher, director of the Museum of Palaeontology, they have found isotopic evidence in 15 mammoth tusks from Siberia that revealed a weaning age reduction of up to three years, over the span of 30,000 years leading up to the extinction of these prehistoric mammals.
According to the New York City News, these new clues suggested that it was humans who drove the Woolly Mammoths into extinction. As for the findings, this new discovery will now be presented at the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology meeting this month.
Cherney said that the study is going to start a fresh debate regarding who or what really caused the extinction of these mammals. Daniel Fisher added that this new research is a milestone which could also solve the extinction problem.
As reported by Express News, there is also a renewed interest on resurrecting this beast through the use of cloning.
A remarkable specimen was found frozen in permafrost off the coast of Siberia, with the skin still intact. Scientists now deem this carcass as a "major step forward" in the attempt to resurrect the long-extinct animal.
According to reports, a total of six carcasses, dating back to 10,000 years, were found on Siberia. In addition, the researchers also found the tusk of a pygmy mammoth, which is an extinct species of the dwarf elephant.
This amazing discovery was made possible by the Project Mammoth Revival, a Russian-funded research venture team which aims to clone the prehistoric creature. The project is just one of the several groups racing to finally make cloning a possibility.
