Scientists believe that the key factor responsible for the extinction of mammoths and other Ice Age animals was a series of sharp climate changes that occurred in the past 60,000 years.

Research findings suggest that many giant animal species became extinct or totally vanished in some regions due to sharp warm spells between glacial stages, the Arctic Info news agency reports. This suggestion is based on an analysis of ice core samples from Greenland and DNA tests of ancient animal fossils. Scientists are skeptical that the appearance of human settlements in northern regions and in the New World could have caused the mass extinction of mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, giant sloths and other representatives of megafauna.