An expedition into the furthest reaches of the Siberian tundra has found DNA clues to the mystery of why the gigantic beasts died out 10,000 years ago - in the stomachs of the preserved carcasses of the last few mammoths to survive on Earth.
The expedition, from Lund University in Sweden, had to travel via helicopter to an area that the researchers describe as “totally nowhere”, with no roads and no trains connecting it to the rest of the world.
Their discovery, made using DNA technology unavailable to previous teams, could solve a mystery that has divided scientists for decades - why the ‘megafauna’, large mammals such as mammoths, sabre-toothed cata and huge ground sloths died out around 10,000 years ago.
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