"John Varley - Mammoth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

"What's the problem?" Warburton asked.

Rostov reached out and swept away a bit of cloth that had covered the frozen man's left forearm
and hand. Warburton saw a gleam of metal. He leaned closer, and saw the man was wearing a
wristwatch.




FROM "LITTLE FUZZY, A CHILD OF THE ICE AGE"
All those many long years ago, the life of a mammoth was not a bad one.

Mammoths were the largest animals that walked on the land at that time. There were no
predators that could kill them, except when they were very young, and mammoth mothers were very
alert to the approach of a big sabertoothed tiger or a lion. (Oh, yes, there were lions in North
America in that time, so many years ago! But they didn't bother mammoths.)

Big Mama's herd were Columbian mammoths, and you may be surprised to learn that they were
larger than the woolly mammoths who were their close relatives. They had hair, but it was shorter and
lighter than woolly mammoth hair, and they didn't have as much of it. That was because they lived
most of their lives in warmer climates, and they had lost the thick pelts their ancestors had. Scientists
call this adaptation.

They also had large ears, like present-day elephants. Woolly mammoths had very small ears.

Woolly mammoths lived farther north, where it was colder. People think that because we call it
the Ice Age, everything was covered with thick glaciers. It is true that vast ice sheets covered parts
of North America, but animals as big as mammoths could not survive there. There wasn't enough to
eat!

But there were many places where not much snow fell during the year, and food could be found
all the year round. We call these places tundras or steppes. This was the domain of the woolly
mammoth.

Life was not bad for the mammoth females, but for some it was better than for others.

Life was best of all for Big Mama. She had been the leader, or matriarch, of the herd as long as
she could remember, and she had a long memory! None of her sisters or daughters or cousins or
nieces or grandchildren ever gave her any trouble. When a male mammoth reached the troublesome
age she drove him out. A few whacks from her trunk were always enough to do the trick!

Life was good for the mammoth children, too. Mammoth mothers loved their children and took
care of them for a long time, just as human mothers do. Mammoth children were also looked after
and protected by all the other grown-up members of the herd.

Life was good... but there was an awkward age for mammoths, just as there is for children,
known as adolescence. At about the age of fifteen a female mammoth was no longer a child, but not
really an adult yet, either.

At that age a female mammoth's thoughts would start to turn to male mammoths, to falling in