Longtusk

Afterword

The picture drawn here of the processes which led to the extinction of the mammoths and other Ice Age fauna is largely based on the careful studies of Gary Haynes and others; see Haynes' Mammoths, Mastodons and Elephants (Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Peter Ward's The Call of Distant Mammoths (Copernicus, 1997). Details of human cultural involvement with mammoths may be found in Mammoths by Adrian Lister and Paul Bahn (Macmillan, 1994). A fine reference on human Ice Age culture is Bahn's Journey Through the Ice Age (Weidenfeld Nicolson, 1994). A good reference on the strange world of the Ice Age, with its land bridges and ice corridors, is After The Ice Age by E.C. Pielou (University of Chicago Press, 1991).

The idea of humans taming mammoths or mastodonts in such ancient times is speculative but not impossible. We have records that elephants have been tamed since 2000 B.C. in the Indus Valley and China, and used in war since 1100 B.C.

A valuable source on Neanderthals and their culture is James Shreeve's The Neanderthal Enigma (Penguin, 1995). It's sadly unlikely that any Neanderthals survived as late as the period in which this book is set. But hominid fossils are hard to find, and much of Beringia is now submerged by the ocean…

Any errors, omissions or misinterpretations are of course my responsibility.

Stephen Baxter

Great Missenden

May 1999