Chapter 3: The Mammoth Calf Dima

Placer-gold miners have found the mammoth calf Dima on 23 July 1977 at the Kirgilyakh Creek, at the upper part of the Kolyma River. That is in the Magadan Region, in Russia’s Far East. This baby mammoth lay in a lens of clear pond ice. It was about 6-8 months old. It had a shoulder height of about 104 cm. And when alive, it weighed 100-115 kg. It was a male. It is one of the best-frozen mammoths, preserved in the flesh, ever recovered, if not the best one. There were many mineral particles in its stomach, intestines and lungs. This means: It has drowned in silty water, after it had desperately struggled, to stay above water. And this silty water also buried it. The plant remains, recovered from its digestive tract, do show us that it has lived in a forest-steppe. Some of these plants are growing now much further south. Also other kinds of animals were found there in the frozen ground: the woolly rhinoceros, wild horse, reindeer, and bison. - How has the mammoth calf Dima lived? How has it perished? - The biological and geological facts, known now, and the historical eyewitness account of the Bible will help us, to unlock this mystery: 

Map of Northeast Siberia, where they have found the remains of the woolly mammoth and its companions. The mammoth calf Dima they have found near the headwaters of the Kolyma River, near the settlement of Susuman, northwest of the town of Magadan. From: Vereshchagin and Baryshnikov (1982:270) Fig. 1.

 

Mammoth baby “Dima”, when the placer gold miners found it. They found it on 23 June, 1977 in frozen ground near the River Kirgilyakh, East Siberia. It is now displayed in the Saint Petersburg Zoological Museum. Photo by: A. Lozhkin, Far Eastern Science Center in Magadan, USSR Academy of Sciences. Through H. Malz, Research Institute Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In the journal Umschau 78 (1978) Heft 19 Page 613.

 

In what kind of a climate has it lived?

In what kind of a climate has the mammoth calf Dima lived in the northeastern-most part of Siberia? On what kind of a plant-cover has it grazed there?

Professor Valentina V. Ukraintseva (1993:63-66) believes: The baby mammoth, discovered at the Kirgilyakh River, has died at the age of 6-12 months, 41,000-40,000 years ago. It has lived there on Arctic tundra. At the lower, warmer places, a few trees were growing. At this time, the mean July temperature does not seen to have risen there above 9-10°C. And the temperature sum with days above 0°C has been no more than 680°.

The mammoth is not able to live at a temperature with days above 0°C of 680°. That is far too cold. The time, in which the plants are able to grow there, is far too short. This elephant would have pitifully starved to death on this Arctic tundra. Also the bison, the lion, and the tiger could not have lived there. In an arctic climate this is not possible. Also the radiocarbon dates cannot be correct. Because during the time, in which the mammoth is supposed to have lived there, it could not have lived there at all.

The mammoth calf Dima has lived in the year 2370 B.C.E. near the upper Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia. That is 4,368 years ago (in 1998). He has lived up there in a mild, temperate climate. There have been then no arctic winter with ice and snow, no permafrost, and no ice wedges, and no arctic tundra. Dima has lived with a cowherd of woolly mammoths, together with other mammoth calves and half-grownups, in a zonal steppe and forest-steppe. Nearby, on the zonal steppe and forest-steppe, herds of steppe bison, wild steppe horses (of the Mongolian type), reindeer, and woolly rhinoceroses were grazing. The steppe-bison and steppe-horse do show us, in what of a climate this zonal steppe and forest-steppe was growing there.

Zonal steppe is growing now in Eurasia at its northern limit in this climate: 30 kcal/cm² annual net radiation at earth’s surface. 120 days above 10°C; 0° to 4°C mean annual air temperature, no permafrost; 600 to 800 mm potential evapotranspiration; 2000 to 3000° temperature sum with days above10°C; 19 to 20°C mean air temperature of the warmest month.

Zonal forest-steppe is growing now at its northern limit in this climate: 30 kcal/km² annual net radiation at earth’s surface; 120 days above 10°C; 0° mean annual air temperature, no permafrost; 550 mm potential evapotranspiration; 2000° temperature sum with days above 10°C; 19°C mean air temperature of the warmest month.

At the beginning of November 2370 B.C.E. (4,368 years ago in 1998), deep arctic cold suddenly hit northeastern Siberia. And it began to rain 40 days and 40 nights: during the global flood of Noah’s days. The water of this global Flood was whirling up silt, sand, and plant particles. The mammoth calf Dima was swimming in this silty water. In his desperate struggle to stay above water, he swallowed some of this silty water. After a hard struggle, he drowned in the Flood of Noah’s days. First, he sunk to the bottom. Then his body became bloated from internal gases. And he rose again to the surface of the Floodwater. This Floodwater was covering then the surface of our globe to a depth of several miles.

In the arctic cold during the winter of 2370/2369 B.C.E., his body might have become frozen in the ice, covering the water, at least for some time. After a few months, the water of the Flood began to move from the continents into the ocean-basins. Because the continents were rising now, and the ocean basins were sinking (Psalms 104:5-9). Some of the sediments, floating in the water, or carried along by it near the bottom, were forming then the 10-m high terrace of the Kirgilyakh River. During the next summer, in 2369 B.C.E., with the silt, sand, and plant-remains, also the frozen body of the mammoth calf sank down to the bottom, while the waters of the Flood were moving back. The mammoth calf sank down onto the slope of the present Kirgilyakh River, near the present settlement of Susuman, above the 10-meter high terrace. Dima’s body was heavily leached, while lying in the silty water and watery silt.

Deep arctic cold then caused the mantle of silt and sand, covering the slopes, to freeze deeply. In winter, the strong frost began to crack the surface of the frozen ground open. In spring, melt-water was flowing into these frost-cracks. And in them, the vertical ice wedges began to grow. In time, these vertical ice wedges were measuring 1.3 to 1.4 m across, in the 10-m high terrace of the Kirgilyakh River. At the top of these large ice wedges in the terrace, there was then the surface of the ground.

Then it became warmer. Unsorted clay, silt, and gravel on the slope near the Kirgilyakh River began to thaw. The frozen ground was soaked with water, when it began to freeze. It was like a thick soup. When melting again, it turned again into a thick soup or porridge, mixed with melt-water. During the short arctic summer it began to flow downhill. In this stream of mud, also the frozen body of the mammoth calf Dima was drifting downhill. It was floating onto the terrace of the Kirgilyakh River. This terrace has been then no terrace yet. It was forming then still the old bed of the Kirgilyakh River.

A small creek then carried the body of the mammoth baby there in spring at break-up, formed briefly by the melting snow and ice. The small melt-water creek laid down Dima’s frozen body in a small pond, on top of the former bed of the Kirgilyakh River. Of this is left now only the 10-m high terrace. This small pond of melt-water lay a little above the former surface of the old riverbed. This is indicated by the surface of the top of the ice wedges. In this icy melt-water pond, on top of the frozen ground of the present terrace, the body then lay.

During the following autumn and winter, the small pond, wherein Dima’s body was lying, froze over, down to the bottom. During the next years, more unsorted silt, sand and gravel was coming down during the short summer from the slope, covering the frozen pond more and more. Then all of this unsorted material, on top of the old bed of the Kirgilyakh River (the present terrace), began to freeze deeply. Also the water of the small pond, wherein the mammoth calf lay, froze. It changed into pond-ice.

In this way, the mammoth calf Dima has lived and has died, and was preserved till our days. On 23 July 1977, the bulldozer operator at the placer gold mine then found the lens of pond-ice, wherein the mammoth calf Dima has been preserved since the Flood of Noah’s days, while scraping away the overburden, which had melted.

The mammoth calf Dima following his mother, shortly before he died. According to R. D. Guthrie, Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe (1990:18) Fig. 1.7. He concludes that the mammoth calf Dima has drowned in a muddy pond. - I do conclude: Dima and his mother have lived in Northeast Siberia in the year 2370 B.C.E. together with herds of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, steppe bison, steppe horses, and reindeer. They all drowned in the year 2370 B.C.E. in the silty waters of the global Flood of Noah’s days. And this Flood has also buried them under a mantle of sand and silt.

 

Mammoth frozen: how long?

How long has the body of the mammoth calf Dima been frozen in the Far North? Has it stayed frozen all the time, since it perished? Or has it also been thawed out sometimes in summer? If so: how much, and for how long?

According to A. V. Lozhkin (1993:429), the soft tissue of the mammoth calf Dima has been radiocarbon dated at 40,600, 41,000 and 41,000 years B.P. in Magadan. – According to V. V. Ukraintseva (1993), the warm period of the late Pleistocene lasted from about 50,000 to 25,000 yr B.P. in northern and northeastern Siberia. Altogether about 25,000 years, according to radiocarbon dating. This is known as the "first warm period". –The "second warm period" – the Holocene Climatic Optimum -, in northern and northeastern Siberia is supposed to have lasted from 9410-3300 yr B.P. It was 6,110 years long.

This means: Of the 40,000 years, since Dima is supposed to have died, there have been then about 25,000 warm, moist years in northeastern Siberia in late Pleistocene time. And during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, it has been warm for about 6,000 years. Thus, of the 40,000 years, during which the deeply frozen mammoth calf Dima is supposed to have lain in the frozen ground of northeastern Siberia, about 30,000 of those years have been warm and moist in summer. During these warm years, there has either been no permafrost at all in the Far North, or the surface of the ground was thawing then deeply in summer: perhaps up to several meters deep.

Thus, about 75% of the time, since the mammoth calf Dima has died, during about 30,000 years, according to radiocarbon dating, it has been warm and moist in summer in northeastern Siberia. The watery silt on the slopes of the hills and mountains of northeastern Siberia was flowing then down in summer into the valleys, just like a mighty stream of lava.

We shall assume that during these 30,000 warm and moist years, the body of Dima was thawing up a little in summer for about 1-2 months per year. During these 1-2 warm summer months the mammoth calf was not deeply frozen. It was lying then in silty, anaerobic, acidic water, in a watery silt. It was lying then closely above the permanently frozen ground: in ground water, having a temperature, which lay only slightly above the freezing point of water. Perhaps, it lay then in water, having a summer temperature of 2-5°C. –How long would this young elephant have been thawed, lying in this silty water? That is, if the watery silt, wherein it lay, had melted for about 2 months in summer?

30,000 years x 2 months = 60,000 months : 12 = 5,000 years.

And how long would Dima’s body had thawed during these 30,000 warm summers, if it had thawed a little for only 1 summer month? – It would have lain then in this silty, anaerobic acidic water, above the permanently frozen ground, for 2,500 years.

We shall assume now that the mammoth calf Dima has died much later, in the global Flood of Noah’s days, in the year 2370 B.C.E. Dima’s body was found in northeastern Siberia in the year 1977, or 4,347 years later. We shall assume now, that also here about 75% of this time have been warm and moist in summer. That is, during the geologist’s Holocene Climatic Optimum.

75% of 4,347 years is 3,260 years. – 2,360 years x 2 warm summer months = 6,520 warm months: 12 = 543 warm years. Dima’s body would have been slightly thawed for 543 years.

If Dima’s body had lain during these 3,269 years each summer for only 1 month in this silty, anaerobic acidic water, closely above the permafrost, it would have been thawed for altogether 272 years.

And if the surface of the permafrost in northeastern Siberia had thawed up deeply in summer at the surface only half as long, instead of 75% of the time only 37.5% of the time, Dima’s thawed body would still have lain then 136 years in this silty ground water. That would still have been a long time, in which its body could have been leached out by the silty, anaerobic, acidic ground-water.

Berezovka Mammoth

The deeply frozen body of the young mammoth bull has lain in an earth-filled crevasse of the fossil ice-bank of the Berezovka River. The Berezovka is a tributary of the Kolyma River in NE Siberia. Lamuts (NE Siberian natives) have found this mammoth in the middle of August 1900 when hunting a moose. Paleontologists of the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg recovered it. One of these experts was E. W. Pfizenmayer. – How well was the body of this deeply frozen mammoth bull preserved?

E. W. Pfizenmayer: "Already quite a while before the mammoth carcass came into sight, an odor, not lovely at all, hit my nose, similar to the fumes, coming from a poorly kept horse stable, strongly mixed with carrion smell. Then, after a turn in the path, the skull, rising up high, appeared. And now we were standing at the grave of this diluvial gigantic animal! Rump and limbs were still sticking partially in the earth masses, wherein the carcass had slid down from above out of one of the wide cracks of the ice-bank. The walls of this ice-bank were rising up at several places nearly vertically above the area, (from where the soil) had fallen down." (1926:126).

"The well preserved flesh on the upper arm, on the upper thigh, and also on the pelvis, was covered with thick layers of fat. As long as it was still frozen, it had a rather delicious appearance of a dark-red color, just like frozen beef and horses-meat, but was more coarse-fibered. But as soon, as it thawed out, it changed its appearance completely. It became flabby and gray, and gave off a distasteful, stinking, ammonia-like smell, which went through every-thing." - Pfizenmayer, E. W. (1926:150).

Chemical Condition of Fat

What have scientists found out about the chemical condition of the fat and flesh of these deep-frozen woolly mammoths? Let us look briefly at three of them: The Sangayurakh mammoth was found on Yana-Kolyma lowland, near 72°N. The Lyakhov mammoth was recovered on Great Lyakhov Island (New Siberian Islands), near 73.5°N. The Berezovka mammoth is from the bank of the Berezovka River, an eastern tributary of the Kolyma River, near 68°N. - E. W. Pfizenmayer has recovered all three of them.

Prof. B. A. Tichomirov (1958:185) says about the woolly mammoths in northern Siberia: "‘Nikitin (1939): Their carcasses and skeletons lay in areas flooded over with cold water. They were preserved, when the permafrost level rose.’ Shestakov investigated the fat of three mammoth carcasses (the Berezovka, the Lyakhov, and the Sangayurakh): ‘The fat of all three mammoths underwent some decomposition after death, which proceeded along exactly the same lines in all three cases. It was due to the action on the fat of moisture in the absence of other influences, such as light, air and microorganisms’ (1914). Later he added that such changes in the fat ‘could occur only if the carcasses at the time of death were lying in very wet surroundings at a relatively low temperature, and if they did not remain for long on the surface.’"

Berelekh and Shandrin River

At the Berelekh River, west of the Indigirka Delta, near 71°N, they have found the remains of about 140 woolly mammoths. It was a cowherd with young males and small calves. Some of these frozen remains were coated in vivianite. This suggests that the bones had at some time lain in a died-out body of water.

Also the mammoth bull from the Shandrin River, east of the Indigirka River, near 71°N, has lain once in anaerobic, sweet silty water. The surface of some of his bones was colored dark blue by vivianite. This indicates burial in anaerobic conditions of silty deposits in fresh water. – N. K. Vereshchagin (1974:6, 7).

Uribey River, Gydan Peninsula

At the Uribey River, on Gydan Peninsula, near 70°N, a nearly complete skeleton of a young mammoth with partly preserved soft parts and hair was discovered in the alluvial sediments in the valley, in western Siberia. The mammoth, apparently a female, died when it was 10 to 12 years old. The carcass originally was in cold water, where muscles and fat were chemically transformed. Very soon, the cadaver was covered with sediments in the zone of permafrost. The Yuribey mammoth died at the end of the Late Pleistocene, as indicated by stratigraphic and geomorphological evidence. The radio-carbon age determinations show 9,600 to 300 yr B.P. on soft tissues and 9,730 to 100 yr B.P. on the fodder mass from the stomach. – Dubrovo, I. (1990:4).