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.
READ MORE
Purchase options below
Find the complete article and many more in this issue of
Skeptic
-
21.3
If you own the issue,
Login to read the full article now.
|
Single Issue - 21.3
|
|
|
£4.99
Or 499 points
|
|
|
Annual Digital Subscription
Only £
3.75 per issue
|
SAVE
25%
|
|
£14.99
Or 1499 points
|
|
|
About Skeptic
INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY
SPECIAL SECTION: IS PORNOGRAPHY BAD FOR YOU?; How Porn Is Messing with Your Manhood; Skeptical of Porn Skeptics; Hazards of Herbal Medicine: Lessons from Aristolochia; What is Sexual Orientation?; Did a Teenager Discover an Ancient Mayan City on Google Earth?; Paleo Diets and Utopian Dreams; Does AA Work? Alcoholics Anonymous, 12-Step Programs, and What We Really Know About Substance Abuse Treatment; The Clash of Eschatologies: The Role of End-Times Thinking in World History; Nightmares from the Id: The Neurophysiology of Anomalous Psychological Experiences; Terror Attacks that Never Were; Electromagnetic Fields and Parental Panics: A Case Study in How Science Can Bring Comfort; REVIEWS: Who Invented Science?; Science and the Creation of the Modern Mind; Heaven Is Not For Real; When Scientific American Put Psychics to the Test; JUNIOR SKEPTIC: MammothMysteries! Part One. The Hidden History of Mammoths and Mastodons