The Mammoth Faunas, the famous cold-adapted mammal assemblages, were distributed widely across northern Eurasia and North America during the Late Pleistocene. The now extinct woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis,was a major component. Abundant fossil remains of this species with radiocarbon dates have been reported through almost all of northern Eurasia, but the fossil rhinoceroses of Mongolia are poorly known. Here, we describe a rhinocerotid skeleton from Ondorkhaan, eastern Mongolia, and compare it with four Late Pleistocene rhinoceros species of northern Eurasia (Elasmotherium sibiricum, Stephanorhinus hemitoechus, Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis and C. antiquitatis), resulting in its identification as a woolly rhinoceros (C. antiquitatis). Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates obtained fromtwo samples (ODK01 andODK02) ofthe skeletonessentiallyagree, 42 160-40 040 cal. a BPand 42 105-39 955 cal. a BP, andthe two samples had d 13 C values ofÀ19.5& and À20.2& SMMKW, respectively. Thisfindsuggests that the Mammoth Faunas were distributed in eastern Mongolia c. 45-40 ka during the period of climatic amelioration between Heinrich events 5 (H5: 46 000 cal. a BP) and 4 (H4: 39 000 cal. a BP).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.