Siberia’s mammoths became a mystery that sparked intense interest among naturalists in England, France, and throughout western Europe. But Siberia was terribly remote and sparsely inhabited. Even the Russian government knew little about that great northern wilderness. New mammoth information was slow to emerge, but it did trickle out over time.
While Cotton Mather was marveling at “giant” bones half a world a way in America, Russia was fighting a twenty-year war. A Swedish army invaded Russia in 1707, and was badly defeated. Thousands of Swedish soldiers were taken prisoner and sent to Siberia. With the encouragement of their Russian captors, the Swedish officers spent their years of exile moving about freely and learning more about the region. They heard the legends of the under ground ratmonsters, saw huge teeth and tusks, and spoke to people who had found frozen mammoth carcasses. A clear pattern was emerging: mammoths and their valuable ivory tusks were definitely found in the ground. And sometimes they came complete with skulls, bones, flesh, and even blood. Then one Russian who said he’d seen a mammoth made a sketch of the beast.
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