Last woolly mammoths die on Wrangel Island
c. 2000 BCE · Event
The Ice Age's most famous animal outlives the Ice Age itself: cut off on an Arctic island as the seas rose, a dwindling population of woolly mammoths survives six thousand years after the mainland herds vanish — the last dying around 2000 BCE, when the Great Pyramid was already five centuries old. Their genomes, sequenced from the permafrost, show a species inbreeding its way to the end.
On these timelines: Human Origins & the Ice Age, Master
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