Introduction
In what kind of a climate have the woolly mammoth and its companions lived in Alaska and the Yukon Territory? On what kind of a plant-cover have they grazed? Have they lived up there during the Last Ice Age on arctic tundra and polar desert, while it was so cold and windy, that no trees were able to grow up there, as some ice-age experts still earnestly believe?
Beside the mammoth and other hoofed animals, and the lion, also two large kinds of bears have lived in Alaska and the Yukon: the short-faced bear (Arctodus simus yudonensis) and the brown bear or grizzly bear (Ursus arctos). How large and how heavy have these two kinds of bears been, when they lived up there together with the woolly mammoth? In what kind of climate and on what kind of a plant-cover have they lived up there? What have they eaten? To what kind of food were they adapted? Does the size and body weight of the brown bear depend on the climate and plant-cover in which it lives, how far north it lives? Have they lived up there in ice and snow, like the polar bear today? If so: would they have found up there then enough to eat? What have some of the world’s leading ice-age experts found out now about this?