The discovery of a nearly complete mammoth skeleton last week in Michigan raises the question of not only this animal's fate, but also what happened to the rest of the woolly mammoths. Did humans drive the Ice Age’s great beasts to extinction?
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Woolly Mammoths Wiped Out by Grass Invasion?
In news reports, University of Michigan paleontologist Dan Fisher proposed that prehistoric people killed and butchered the newly found mammoth, refrigerating what they didn’t immediately eat by sinking the rest of the carcass in a frigid lake. Other scientists say we can't be certain what killed the creature until the bones are examined for cut marks and other clues.
As for the rest of the woolly mammoths, whether humans are to blame for their disappearance, as well that of 36 other North American mammal species that went extinct at the end of the Ice Age, remains hotly disputed. The other leading contender: a changing climate.