Mammoths went extinct at different times depending on the population:
- Most woolly mammoths disappeared from mainland Siberia around 10,000 years ago during the early Holocene, likely due to climate change and possibly human hunting.
- Small relict populations survived much longer on islands: on St. Paul Island in the Bering Strait until about 5,600 years ago, and on Wrangel Island off Northeast Siberia until around 4,000 years ago.
- The last woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island lived well into the start of human civilization, overlapping with the construction of ancient Egyptian pyramids.
- Other mammoth species, like the Columbian mammoth, became extinct around 12,500 years ago in North America.
- Recent studies suggest that the extinction of these last island populations may have been due to sudden events such as disease, environmental changes, or habitat degradation rather than just inbreeding.
Thus, while the majority of mammoths went extinct about 10,000 years ago, the very last known populations survived until roughly 4,000 years ago.
