Chapter 5: Central Alaska’s Mammoth Fauna

Which kinds of large animals have lived in central Alaska, together with the woolly mammoth? When have they lived up there? Were they "arctic" animals, adapted to an arctic climate and plant-cover? How many of these large animals have lived up there? How large was their biomass? What was the ratio of flesh eaters to plant eaters? How much fodder has grown on the arctic steppe-tundra of mammoth-steppe in central Alaska, the Yukon and further south in the Province of Alberta, on the ice-free corridor between the two large ice-sheets? Could such a periglacial plant-cover have supported the elephant, herds of elephants?

Prof. R. Dale Guthrie has studied especially the mammoth fauna from four placer-gold mining sites near Fairbanks, central Alaska. Have these grazing animals lived up there at the same time? Or have they lived tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years apart? Have they also lived there during the height of the Last Ice Age, near the rim of the continental ice-sheets? Prof. R. D. Guthrie has first published his findings in 1968. He has published them again in a condensed form in 1996. He writes:

"The greatest concentrations of fossil large mammals occur in the upper part of the sections – those beds dated as Wisconsin. So, although detailed stratigraphic information is often not available, the narrow unit of time involved permit the palaeosynecologist to consider these fossil assemblages as remnants of a community, which occupied the immediate area where they were recovered, and to be essentially contemporaneous.

"Even if the Alaskan assemblages are late Pleistocene in age and are well preserved (dried blood and other tissues are present on some bones), biases still exist that must be considered in any attempt at a detailed faunal analysis. Retransport is always a problem in faunal reconstruction, but in this case the bias is not so important, as the skeletal elements of large mammals are resistant to re-transportation over long distances. The drainage basins from which the deposits were derived all are rather small." (1996:120).

"Four localities were chosen from among the many where specimens have been collected. These localities have the four largest series of specimens and are all near Fairbanks. The localities are:

1.      Fairbanks Creek Mine: 65°04´-147°10´. 30 km from Tanana River floodplain. Drainage basin approx. 40 square km. Mainly Wisconsin-age silt deposits, but pre-Wisconsin sediments present.

2.      Engineer Creek Mine: 64°57´-147°38´. 7 km from Tanana River floodplain. Drainage basin approx. 12 square km. Age of deposits similar to those of Fairbanks Creek.

3.      Cripple Creek Mine: 64°49´-148°01´. 5 km from Tanana River floodplain. Drainage basin approx. 6 square km. Age of deposits similar to those at Fairbanks Creek.

4.      Gold Hill Mine: 64°51´-147°59´. 3 km from Tanana River floodplain. Drainage basin approx. 40 square km." (1996:121).

The Faunal Community

Which large animals have been recovered at these four placer-gold mining sites near Fairbanks, central Alaska? How many of them have lived there on what kind of a plant-cover?

Prof. R. D. Guthrie: "Literally thousands of mammoth elements have been found in Alaskan Pleistocene deposits. The large extinct bison fossils in Alaska probably represent one species, Bison priscus (B. crassicornis). At least this species is far in the majority. The male had very large horns, although not as large as B. latifrons of the Great Plains. Bison are the most abundant vertebrate fossils found in Alaska. Although these animals were large-horned, they were not much larger than B. bison in body size. Horse: They appear to be closely related to the quite variable Eurasian Equus caballus. These animals, which comprise the majority of the assemblage, as well as the minority (‘trace’) species, are listed in Table 2-5 with an estimate of their weights and diets. The weights represent approximate annual average of all age classes. The presence of the saiga antelope, Saiga tatarica, is noteworthy. The nearest distributional perimeter of the living Eurasian saiga is over 6,000 km from the fossil localities in interior Alaska, where its bones were recovered from sediments of Wisconsin age.

"The relative composition of the four faunas are represented in Table 2-5 and are illustrated graphically in Figure 2-28. In every case the bison and horse are the two most abundant species, with mammoth ranking – or tied for – third. Bison outnumbered the horse in all of the faunas except one – Cripple Creek. At Fairbanks Creek there were almost four times as many bison as horses. Caribou is tied for third, and Engineer Creek, where it is outnumbered twofold by muskox. The species generally ranking fifth is muskox. The two exceptions are the previously mentioned Engineer Creek and Fairbanks Creek. The relatively high frequency (4.7%) of moose at Fairbanks Creek is striking. At the other three localities moose comprise less than 1 percent of the fauna, about the same as wapiti. Symbos (an extinct muskox) and Cervalces (= an extinct moose-deer) are the only other ungulates that occur in high enough frequencies to have been of much faunal significance – each averaging about 0.2 percent.

"The number of wolf, lion, and bear are represented respectively in that order. The frequency of wolves averages slightly under 1 percent, lions half that, and bears less than half as frequent as lions. The average predator-prey ratio at these fossil localities is approximately one wolf per 130 ungulates, and one lion per 250 or more ungulates. These ratios are not far removed from modern comparisons, particularly when one considers that the wolf and lion had some overlap in their prey species. The saber-toothed tiger, smilodon, and the coyote, Canis latrans, also were present in the fauna for at least part of the depositional period.

"It is difficult to reconstruct the precise predator-prey relationships, as there are obviously no exact modern counterparts from which detailed comparisons can be drawn. But the ratio does not deviate greatly from the expected – given the predator species and the ungulate composition. Generally speaking, wolves are cervid [deer] predators, whereas lions prey more on equids [horse] and plains bovids [cattle]. One might expect in this community that the bison, horse, and possibly young mammoth were the chief prey of the lion..." - Guthrie, R. D. (1996:122, 123).

The four mining cuts (shaded area) near Fairbanks, central Alaska: Fairbanks Creek, Engineer Creek, Cripple Creek, and Gold Hill. They have mined there placer gold from the gold-bearing gravel of the old creek bed, beneath a mighty layer of muck and silt. This muck and silt contains much frozen water. Water has laid it down. In this frozen muck and silt, above the old creek bed, they have recovered the frozen remains of the mammoth fauna. From: R. D. Guthrie (1968:349; 1996:121).

Top: Biomass and % individuals in Fairbanks area today. Below: % individuals of large mammals of the mammoth fauna at the four fossil sites near Fairbanks, Alaska. From R. D. Guthrie (1968:351; 1996:129). The light areas represent grazers and the dark areas non-grazers. Bison and horse have been here the most numerous large mammals. Only a few caribou and musk-oxen have lived there. They were also adapted to a mild, temperate climate, without an arctic winter, without permafrost. Most of them have lived there shortly before the global Flood of Noah’s days in 2370 B.C.E., on a forest-steppe. And this global Flood has also then killed and buried them at the beginning of November, 2370 B.C.E.

Alaskan Grassland

On what kind of a plant-cover has the late Pleistocene mammoth fauna lived in Central Alaska, in what kind of a climate?

Prof. R. D. Guthrie: "The most salient conclusions one can draw from the community reconstructed from these Alaskan mammalian fossil assemblages is that the vegetational patterns must have been radically different from those existing today in the general region. The faunal composition (estimated from the counts conducted by the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game) of the living large mammals, within a 100-km radius of the four Pleistocene localities used in this study, is represented in Figure 2-30. Moose (Alces) and caribou (Rangifer) are the most common large mammals, with sheep present only in the high alpine meadows. The carnivores include wolves and two species of bears, the black bear (Ursus americanus) and the grizzly (U. arctos).

"It is a radically different fauna from the one portrayed in the fossil record. The chief difference can best be pointed out by ratios of the biomass of browsers and grazers. The four fossil faunas have biomass browser-grazer ratios of 5:100, 4:100, 3:100 and 1:100, whereas the ratio of the modern fauna from the same general area is higher than 100:1. By way of comparison, a grassland fauna in the Bison Range National Reserve in Wyoming has a biomass browser-grazer ratio of 28:100.

"A ratio shift of this magnitude supports the hypothesis that the area was a grassland during the Wisconsin glaciation, and has changed to a spruce forest-shrub tundra environment. ... The extant bison herds in the North (those introduced into Alaska and the indigenous herd in the Great Slave Lake area in northern Canada) and the once-existing feral horses in the Delta River, Alaska, area, utilized – and have been restricted – to limited grassland habitats." (1996:126-128). 

Top: Biomass and % individuals in Fairbanks area today. Below: % individuals of large mammals of the mammoth fauna at the four fossil sites near Fairbanks, Alaska. From R. D. Guthrie (1968:351; 1996:129). The light areas represent grazers and the dark areas non-grazers. Bison and horse have been here the most numerous large mammals. Only a few caribou and musk-oxen have lived there. They were also adapted to a mild, temperate climate, without an arctic winter, without permafrost. Most of them have lived there shortly before the global Flood of Noah’s days in 2370 B.C.E., on a forest-steppe. And this global Flood has also then killed and buried them at the beginning of November, 2370 B.C.E.

Density

How densely has central Alaska been inhabited by the woolly mammoth, the bison, the horse, and the other large mammals? How large has been the biomass of this mammoth fauna? In what kind of a climate has it then able to live up there?

Prof. R. D. Guthrie: "One of the most difficult problems posed by this assemblage is the matter of density. How could such a complex and diversified fauna occupy a habitat, which now supports so few individuals? Several estimates of large-mammal standing biomass have been made in different environments. The apparent high standards of living attained by Upper Paleolithic man on the Eurasian loess-steppe (Butzer, 1964) with virtually the same large-mammal community that existed in the Alaskan refugium, suggest relatively high densities of game. Rather than being comparable to the densities found on the present tundra, the ungulate production in the Alaskan refugium was perhaps several times as great." - Guthrie, R. D. (1968:355).

The herds of large hoofed mammals of the mammoth fauna in Central Alaska were similar to the game herds, roaming now across East Africa’s savannas. This savanna, grassland or forest-meadow was not able to grow in an arctic climate, during the peak of the Last Glaciation. This grassland and forest-meadow was only able to grow in Central Alaska, when the summer was just as long and as warm, as it is now in southern Canada, near the USA/Canadian border and in southern Siberia. But there was then no winter, as we find it there now.

Prof. R. D. Guthrie published a table about "Relative Percentages and Biomass of Fauna at Four Fossil Localities". It is found in his report of 1968 pp.352, 353 and 1996 p. 122. Which kinds of animals were living there? How many were living there? And how large was their biomass? I have calculated from them their biomass. I = individuals, B = biomass. The body weight, given by R. D. Guthrie, is the annual average of all age groups.

Fairbanks Creek

2,073 individuals, 94.5% grazers, area 40 km², Prey and predator biomass.

Large plant eaters:

97.4 woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenis), 3,000 kg, 4.7% I; 25.9 % B

134 giant bison (Bison priscus, B. crassicornis), 500 kg, 64.6% I, 59.4% B

358.6 horses (Equus caballus), 290 kg, 17.3% I, 9.% B

97.4 caribou (Rangifer tarandus), 100 kg, 4.7% I .9% B

18.6 muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), 180 kg, .9% I, .5% B

97.4 moose (Alces alces), 370 kg, 4.7% I, 3.3% B

6.2 wapiti (Cevus elaphus), 220 kg, .3% I,.1% B

2.1 sheep (Ovis dalli), 80 kg. .1% I, less than .05% B

2.1 moose stags (Cervalces sp.), 350 kg, .1% I, .1% B

12.4 woodland muskoxen (Symbos sp., Bootherium sp.), 180 kg, .6% I, .2% B

Total large plant eater biomass: 1,116,182 kg/40 km² = 27,904 kg large plant eater biomass/km²

Large flesh eaters:

5.3 wolves (Canis lupus), 30 kg, .9% I, .1% B

4.76 lions (Panthera leo, P. leo atrox), 110 kg, .8% I, .2% B

Total large flesh eater biomass: 684.25 kg/40 km² = 1,631 kg prey/kg of predator (wolf, lion).

Prey and predator biomass calculated from Guthrie, R. D. (1968:352, Table 1). Late Pleistocene mammoth fauna. kg: annual average body weight of all ages. I = percent individuals. B = percent biomass. Result: Fairbanks Creek has a hoofed mammal biomass of 1,116 182 kg on 40 km² = 27,904 kg /km². There is 1,631 kg of prey for 1 kg of predator (wolf, lion).

Engineer Creek

595 individuals, 95,3% grazers, area 12 km². Prey and predator biomass.

Large plant eaters:

30.8 woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), 3,000 kg, 6.7% I, 36.0% B

267.1 giant bison (Bison priscus, B. crassicornis), 500 kg, 44.9% I, 40.2% B

219.0 horses (Equus caballlus), 290 kg, 36.8% I, 19.1% B

8.5 caribou (Rangifer tarandus),100 kg, 2.0% I, .5% B

1.8 moose (Alces alces), 370 kg, .3% I, .2% B

4.2 wapiti (Cervus elaphus), 220 kg, .7% I, .3% B

1.2 sheep (Ovis dalli), 80 kg, less than .05% I, 1.19% B

1.2 moose stags (Cervalces sp.), 350 kg, 2% I, 1.19% B

1.2 woodland muskoxen (Symbols sp.; Bootherium sp.), 180 kg, .2% I, .1% B

Large plant eater biomass:326,790.55 kg/12 km² = 27,232.54 kg/km²

Large flesh eaters:

3.0 wolves (Canis lupus), 30 kg, .5% I, less than .05% B

1.2 lion (Panthera leo, P. leo atrox), 110 kg, .2% I, .1% B

Total large flesh eater biomass: 220.15 kg/12 km² = 123.7 kg prey/ 1 kg predator (wolf, lion)

Prey and predator biomass calculated from Guthrie, R D. (1968:352) Table 1. Large plant eater biomass: 326,790.kg/12 km² = 27,232 kg/km². 123.7 kg prey/kg predator.

Cripple Creek

2,293 individuals, 97.2% grazers, area 6 km². Prey and predator biomass.

Large plant eaters:

250 woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), 3,000 kg, 10.9% I, 50.8% B

823.2 giant bison (Bison priscus, B. crassicornis), 500 kg, 35.9% I, 27.9% B

940.1 horses (Equus caballus), 290 kg, 41.0% I, 18.5 B

151.3 caribou (Rangifer tarandus), 100 kg, 6.6% I, .1.0% B

39 muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), 180 kg, 1.7% I, .8% B

16 moose (Alces alces), 270 kg, .7% I, .2% B

6.9 moose stag (Cervalces sp.), 350 kg, .3% I, .2% B

2.3 camels (Camelops sp.), 180 kg, .1% I, .1% B

Total large plant eater biomass: 1,468,483 kg/ 6 km² = 244,747 kg/km²

Large flesh eaters:

27.5 wolves (Canis lupus), 30 kg, 1.2 % I, .1% B

2.3 coyotes (Canis latrans), 15 kg, .1% I, less than .05% B

11.5 lions (Panthera leo, P. leo atrox)

Total large flesh eater biomass: 2,121.0 kg/6 km² = 115.39 kg prey/kg predator

Prey and predator biomass calculated from, Guthrie, R. D. (1968:352) Table 1. Large plant eater biomass 1,468,483 kg/km² = 244,747 kg/km². 115 kg prey/kg predator.

Gold Hill

1004 individuals, 98.4% grazers, area 40 km². Prey and predator biomass.

Large plant eaters:

34.1 woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), 3,000 kg, 3.4% I, 20.9% B

551.2 giant bison (Bison priscus, B. crassicornis), 500 kg, 55.9% I, 56.4% B

355.4 horses (Equus caballus), 290 kg, 35.4% I, 21.1% B

30.1 caribou (Rangifer tarandus), 100 kg, 3.0% I, .1% B

12.0 muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), 180 kg, 1.2% I, .7% B

3.0 moose (Alces alces), 370 kg, .3% I., .2% B

4.0 wapiti (Cervus elaphus), 220 kg, .4% I, .2% B

2.0 woodland muskoxen (Symbos sp.; Bootherium sp.), 180 kg, .2% I, .1% B

3.0 camels (Camelops sp.), 180 kg, .3% I, .2% B

Total large plant eater biomass: 488,274 kg/40 km² = 12,207 kg/km²

Large flesh eaters:

7 wolves (Canis lupus), 30 kg, .7% I = 211 kg wolf biomass/40 km² = 2,341 kg prey/kg predator (wolf)

Prey and predator biomass calculated from: Guthrie, R. D. (1968:352) Table 1. Gold Hill has a large plant eater biomass of 488,274 kg/40 km² = 12,207 kg/km². There is 2,341 kg prey/kg (wolf).

Questions, Objections

Someone might ask now: When have the large mammals of these four fossil sites, near Fairbanks, lived: the woolly mammoth, the steppe bison, horse, camel, lion, and other animals? Have all of them lived there at the same time? Or have they lived there during different times, many tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years apart? Why are there so many bones of the large mammals of the late Pleistocene fauna? Is that normal? – If it were normal: what should we expect then?

This: Just as many bones of large mammals of the mammoth fauna should be preserved then also in the older sediments. From the time of the steppe mammoth, and still earlier, from the southern mammoth (or elephant), we should expect to find then just as many bones and whole frozen bodies, as from the late Pleistocene woolly mammoth. We should expect to find then just as many bones (and whole frozen bodies) of the earlier forms of the bison and the wild horse. We should find them also in the layers of the middle and early Pleistocene sediments. – What have some of the world’s leading experts found out about this?

Prof. N. K. Vereshchagin and I. E. Kuzmina state about this: "One very puzzling aspect of mammoth history is the fact that so few remains are known from the period beyond 50-60,000 years ago, that is, from before the last glacial epoch (Würm, Wisconsin), and also from the period beyond the range of radiocarbon dating. At the same time, taphonomic [burial] theory suggests that conditions appropriate for the burial of mammoth skeletons must have been abundant in the preceding Riss/Würm (Dnepr/Valdai) interglacial, when there were extensive ground thawing, erosion, and reconstitution of the draining systems." (1984:490).

How well are the remains of large mammals preserved now in northern Siberia and Alaska? Are they all preserved, because it is so cold up there?

Prof. N. K. Vereshchagin says about the remains of large mammals in present-day North Siberia: "In general, skulls and other bones disappear rather quickly through the action of rodents, fungus, sun and rain... In 20-30 years the bones and tusks of a mammoth would have been almost entirely destroyed by atmospheric processes." (1974:6).

Prof. R. Dale Guthrie found out about this: "Very few bones are preserved as fossils. The most common opportunity for preservation is a basic or calcareous environment. ... To create most fossils, a bone must be covered so that aerobic decomposers [which need oxygen] cannot feed on the organic parts. Alkaline ponds and stream oxbows provide such conditions. Bones submerged in the mud of a pond or lake are likely to be preserved." (1990:70).

The text below the remains of a dead African elephant (Fig. 2.21 in his book) says: "Few animals become fossils. This elephant died a natural death away from depositional environments in the open African savanna. Most edible parts have been removed by scavengers. Only the thick, dried hide and bones remain. The ears, feet, and tip of the trunk are thin-skinned and were the first to be eaten. Eventually, what remains will be scattered by hyenas, but it is unlikely that any portion will become fossilized. That is true for most large mammals.

"Most conditions that produce fossils preserve, at best, only bones. In very arid regions soft body parts occasionally become so dehydrated that decomposers cannot live and multiply; shriveled mummies are the result. Preservation of Pleistocene fossils in parts of the unglaciated far north is exquisite, but we are only beginning to understand why so many fossils are preserved in Beringia. ... Mummification is not just a matter of freezing; carcasses must be buried by some rapid means. The geology of Beringian deposits and the fossils themselves can tell us how this happened. Like all ground cover in interior Alaska, except for high-alpine talus and river bars, solifluction lobes are thoroughly vegetated. Bones lying in such a vegetation mat are rapidly incorporated by plant overgrowth (usually moss), then leached and destroyed by root acids.

"The rate of movement of solifluction lobes is not fast enough to incorporate many bones. Additionally, only a small margin of the solifluction lobe would work to cover bones in any one year. It is difficult to imagine a large mammoth bone or skull being incorporated intact. Solifluction movement would take several decades to cross the specimen, leaving one end decomposed, which is not the case with most Beringian fossils. One has to invoke a different environment for large mammal mummies, and there seems to be a continuum between mummies and the smaller bones." - Guthrie, R. D. (1990:70-72).

Result

The woolly mammoth and its companions, whose remains they have recovered at the four fossil sites near Fairbanks, have not lived up there in an arctic climate at all. Nor have they lived up there during the height of the Last Ice Age. The arctic plant-cover is not able to feed these large herds of hoofed animals. They would have starved there to death. Also the cave-lion was not able to live in the Far North in an arctic climate. There is not enough to eat.

It is not normal at all that so many bones of large mammals are preserved. Also in Yukon/Alaska and northern Siberia, most of the large bones quickly disappear. They will go back to the dust within a few years. If it were normal that the remains of so many large mammals are preserved in the Far North, they should also have been preserved then in former times. We should find then just as many large bones in the sediments of the early part of the late Pleistocene, before 50,000 years ago, according to radiocarbon dating. But we do not.

And we should expect to find then also as many large bones and whole frozen bodies of the steppe mammoth and the Columbian mammoth from the middle Pleistocene. But we do not. And we should expect to find then just as many bones and whole frozen bodies of the southern mammoth, from the early Pleistocene. But we do not. Why have only so few bones and skeletons of these early mammoths been preserved at all? Because most of them have died a natural death and have turned into dust.

There are so many bones of the woolly mammoth and its companions in Central Alaska, the Yukon and northern Siberia, because most of them have died suddenly, at the same time, from the same cause. This cause killed large and small animals alike, strong and weak ones, old and young ones, plant-eaters and flesh-eaters alike. And it also buried them, on a global scale. There is only one cause known, which is able to do that, to kill them all and to take up silt, sand, and gravel, and to bury them: water! Most of these animals of the mammoth fauna were killed by the global Flood of Noah’s days in the year 2370 B.C.E.

The woolly mammoth and its companions have lived in Alaska and northern Siberia before the global Flood of Noah’s days in 2370 B.C.E., about 4,400 years ago. They have grazed up there in a mild, temperate climate. At the beginning of November 2370 B.C.E., they were drowned by the water of this global Flood. During the next year, in 2369 B.C.E., many of their bloated bodies were floating on the surface of the water. More and more they were falling apart in the summer’s heat. Some of these bloated bodies were drifting then also from other parts of Central Alaska into the Fairbanks area. There they sunk down to the bottom together with the silt and plant-remains. They were buried by the silt, sand and gravel, also carried there by the water of the Flood. Then these watery sediments with the isolated bones, partial skeletons, and whole bodies (in the flesh), quickly froze in the deep arctic cold, hitting now the Far North. They have lain then about 4,400 years in their ice grave, till they were dug out by miners searching for placer gold.

The ice age theory, as now commonly taught throughout the world, has been weighed on the scales and been found to be wanting. It is unscientific and does not agree at all with the scientific facts known now. It should be replaced by a better explanation, one, that fully agrees with all the scientific facts, that are known now!