The geographical range of the mammoth was very extensive. There is scarcely a county in England in which its remains have not been found in alluvial gravel or in caverns, and numbers of its teeth are dredged in the North Sea. In Scotland and Ireland its remains are less abundant, and in Scandinavia and Finland they appear to be unknown; but they have been found in vast numbers at various localities throughout the greater part of central Europe (as far south as Santander and Rome), northern Asia, and the northern part of the American continent.
Fig. 1.--Skeleton of Mammoth (_Elephas primigenius_), with portions of the skin.]
The mammoth belongs to the post-Tertiary or Pleistocene epoch and was contemporaneous with man. There is evidence to show that it existed in Britain before, during and after the glacial period. It is in northern Siberia that its remains have been found in the greatest abundance and in exceptional preservation. For a long period there has been from that region an export of mammoth-ivory, fit for commercial purposes, to China and to Europe. In the middle of the 10th century trade was carried on at Khiva in fossil ivory. Middendorff estimated the number of tusks which have yearly come into the market during the last two centuries at at least a hundred pairs, but Nordenskiöld considers this estimate too low. Tusks are found along the whole shore-line between the mouth of the Obi and Bering Strait, and the farther north the more numerous they become, the islands of New Siberia being one of the favourite collecting localities. The remains are found not only round the mouths of the great rivers, but embedded in the frozen soil in such circumstances as to indicate that the animals lived not far from the localities in which they are found; and they are exposed either by the melting of the ice in warm summers or the washing away of the sea-cliffs or river-banks. In this way the bodies of more or less nearly perfect animals, often standing in the erect position, with the soft parts and hairy covering entire, have been brought to light.
FIG. 2.--Grinding surface of Upper Molar Tooth of the Mammoth (_Elephas primigenius_). c, cement; d, dentine; e, enamel.]
For geographical distribution and anatomical characters see Falconer's _Paleontological Memoirs_, vol. ii (1868); B. Dawkins, "_Elephas Primigenius_, its Range in Space and Time," _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._, xxxv. 138 (1879); and A. Leith Adams, "Monograph of British Fossil Elephants," part ii., _Palaeontographical Society_ (1879). (W. H. F.; R. L.*)