Columbian mammoth

This is a composite Columbian mammoth put together from bones found in the La Brea tar pits.

The La Brea tar pits have yielded one of the greatest collections of Pleistocene megafauna (and their associated ecosystem) in the world. These finds are on display at the Page Museum in Los Angeles.

The mammoth in canada and alaska were hunted by paleo indians. Where the mammoth in california hunted by paleo indians or did they disappear before the arrival of humans ?
This is a unique and splendid museum, by the way, it was great to post it here.

carlos77 said:

The mammoth in canada and alaska were hunted by paleo indians. Where the mammoth in california hunted by paleo indians or did they disappear before the arrival of humans ?
This is a unique and splendid museum, by the way, it was great to post it here.

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Thanks Carlos. There was overlap between humans and mammoths in California. There was a dwarf mammoth species endemic to the California Channel Islands that disappeared about the time that the oldest known human presence was on the islands (about 13,000 years ago I think). There is not direct evidence of mammoth hunting here that I am aware of, but it almost certainly happened as humans and the megafauna coexisted.

Ah, the Page Museum. A favorite hangout for our family outings when the boys were much younger. At the time, our membership with the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum also got us into the Page Museum for free. Beware of tar seeping up all throughout the surrounding park. Even the neighboring Los Angeles County Art Museum was built over tar, and kind of just floats there.

I've seen photos of this specimen on the internet labelled as a Columbian mammoth and also as an imperial mammoth

Chlidonias said:

I've seen photos of this specimen on the internet labelled as a Columbian mammoth and also as an imperial mammoth

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I did some searching and it looks like "imperial mammoth" is a synonym for the Columbian mammoth. It looks like mammoth taxonomy has been a bit messy.

DavidBrown said:

I did some searching and it looks like "imperial mammoth" is a synonym for the Columbian mammoth. It looks like mammoth taxonomy has been a bit messy.

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that's interesting. I've always known them as different species (imperator and columbi). I don't think they are considered synonymous by most authors, but rather it is only a possibility mooted by a few. But I'm far from well-read on mammoth taxonomy so who knows.

Chlidonias said:

that's interesting. I've always known them as different species (imperator and columbi). I don't think they are considered synonymous by most authors, but rather it is only a possibility mooted by a few. But I'm far from well-read on mammoth taxonomy so who knows.

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This paper (according to the summary on Wikipedia) suggests that Mammuthus imperator is a misidentified Columbian mammoth, but maybe there are other opinions.

Agenbroad, L. D. (2005). "North American Proboscideans: Mammoths: The state of Knowledge, 2003". Quaternary International 126-128: 73–25. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.016

its probably one of those things that is gaining ground. It no doubt makes most sense that they are the same animal.