The mammoth, with its shaggy coat, enormous tusks, and ponderous
presence, is one of the great icons of extinction. It is also one of the
few prehistoric creatures that is known not only from a few scattered
fossilized bones, but from specimens that have been preserved perfectly,
with skin, flesh and hair. Complete mammoths lie frozen in the icy
wastes of Siberia, and from time to time one is exposed as the
temperature or conditions change. So while there is doubt about when
most prehistoric animals first appeared on earth, we know precisely when
and where the mammoth lived. Not only are there excellent specimens, we
also have pictures of mammoths painted by people who actually saw them
alive - our ancestors who, thousands of years ago, decorated the walls
of caves with the animal's image. Today, this artistic tradition
continues and many modern painters have chosen to create pictures
showing the mammoth as it appeared in life. Its lumbering form is often
shown crossing great ice fields or snowbound plateaus. The Mammoth is
one of the great icons of prehistory. The name conjures up an immediate
picture of a huge, shaggy, reddish, elephant-like creature trudging
across a vast icy waste, its enormous curved tusks reflecting in their
whiteness the snows lying all around. The word mammoth is now so
familiar that it has come to mean not just an extinct elephant but
anything that is immense, formidably large or outsized. The mammoth has
entered popular culture in a way that few animals have. And, curiously,
we know more about them than we do about most prehistoric beasts. The
majority of these are identified only from fossil bones, yet modern man
has found whole frozen mammoths, completely preserved for centuries, in
the ice of Siberia. We also have cave paintings, drawn by our ancestors,
which show us exactly what mammoths looked like in life. These are among
the earliest images produced by the hand of man. Yet the mammoth remains
mysteriously elusive. The idea of an elephant living in arctic
conditions seems to us a strange one. After all, today's elephants are
essentially creatures of the tropics. Why did they die out, perhaps as
recently as four or five thousand years ago--just as man was beginning
his rise to true civilization? This book tells the story of the mammoth
and its interaction with man--both in prehistory and today. Errol Fuller
is the author of The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original
Penguin, and The Dodo: Extinction in Paradise.
