Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant

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Summary: Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant
Review: Mammoth: THe Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant written by Richard Stone is a book about adventure, but not just your oridinary adventure. The Adventure here is about the unearthing of giant animals from the Pleistocene Era... Giant Wooly Mammoths in the permafrost of Siberia. This is a very provocative book as the science is beautifully clear.

The Wooly Mammoth roamed Europe, Asia and North America and grew to huge proportions, but later became extinct and all that we know of their existance is being uncovered by some very good scientific research. Now, a new generation of explorers has taken up the challange, to find out more about the mammoth and the life and times that existed during their lifetimes. Armed with ground-penetrating radar, GPS, and helecopters the large expanse of Siberia is begins to yield some interesting finds and the clues that go along with more and more information.

There is promiss in this book that once again the mammoth may live... how you say can this happen... well through DNA and cloning. This book takes you on a rigerous adventure through frontiers of science. Yes, theoretically it can be done, but this book examins both the profound philosophical questions about the risks and morality of executing these efforts. Liken to "Jurassic Park," you say.. and you would be correct.

Theories exist as to why the mammoth did out and became extinct... one of which is the overchill theory as the Earth became increasingly cooler the food supply for the mammoth became less and less forage for the animal, next the psychological change of being penned in by dense forest and glacier. Mammoth were used to living in the Northern cooler climates as is evidece in the finds of today. So much so, as there are finds in the small islands of the Arctic Ocean.

This book tells a riveting adventureus tale that is fascinating to read. The prose flows well as you, the reader, are now in the hunt for the mammoth. The text treats the reader to a review of the wide variety of information Stone has learned about the Mammoth while doing research.

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Summary: A mammoth primer and more
Review: This book is enjoyable to read and packed with information. Richard Stone does a great job with the mostly scientific material while keeping it entertaining with descriptions of travel to Siberia. This book is an excellent primer on mammoths--their biology, their fossil record, the history of their discovery by humans, the theories of their extinction--and it has a bibliography if you would like to know more. But it is more than that. In discussing current research on mammoths, he covers paleontolgy, arctic exploration, Russian history, genetics, molecular biology, biogeography, and anthropology, and handles all of them equally well. The center piece of the book is the expedition to unearth the Jarkov mammoth and thaw it slowly to find out how intact it is (you would be surprised how many intact frozen mammoths have gone on record as having been left to the wolves to eat or fed to dogs, or just left to rot--what a waste!). The book ends with some uncertainty about how valuable the Jarkov mammoth will be, but that did not distract me from finding this a very satisfying book.

One small thing that would have made this book better is a graphic depiction of a timeline of the Pleistocene. I have trouble keeping my dates straight.

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Summary: A Shaggy Elephant Story
Review: This fascinating little book is about a large and extinct creature, the mammoth. Evidence of this creature, which last walked the earth 37 centuries ago, seems to be scattered all over the place in North America and in Siberia. This book describes the work of a mixed band of mammoth enthusiasts as they search for mammoths frozen in the tundra of Russia's Far North.

There is an international cast in this story-a French arctic travel guide, Russian academics, Japanese experts in reproductive science, a Dutch amateur with a house stuffed with mammoth bones and, of course, the folks at the Discovery Channel trying to make this all into Good Television or, at least, Show Biz. Unfortunately, this book comes a bit too early--biotechnology has not advanced to the point where a mammoth might be cloned from scattered remnants of DNA and a superb specimen, frozen in the ice with useful bits intact, had not been found by the time the book went to press. Instead, author Richard Stone does an admirable job in sewing parts together to tell this story.

We learn that the inhabitants of Siberia believe that digging up the bones of mammoths brings bad luck, but there is nothing wrong with taking tusks when they are found. Huge numbers of tusks, estimated from 50,000 animals, have been shipped out in the last century. Scientists made arduous journeys trying to discover more about mammoths and our strong interest in them continues to this day. The book details how mammoths probably lived and alternative explanations about how they became extinct--through climactic change, being hunted or wiped out by disease.

This is quite interesting and the sections about cloning mammoths are highly imaginative and entertaining. Mr. Stone has done good research and writes engagingly of his voyages beyond the beyond. And he does not shy away from commenting on the ethical question of cloning extinct species. But at the end of the day, one has to wonder about the resources invested into the quixotic expeditions he details when there are pressing issues in habitat conservation today, including the protection of that much-loved and much-decimated relative of the mammoth, the elephant.

Recommended for those with an interest in science on the fringes...