The odds are pretty good that if you’re reading this right now, you live in a part of the world that once belonged to mammoths. The woolly mammoth ranged over vast areas of the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to Spain and from Europe across Asia and into the Americas. A cold-adapted animal, the mammoth nevertheless survived for millions of years despite the coming and going of warming periods between ice ages. When the temperature warmed and the steppe gave way to forests, mammoths would retreat to colder areas and their numbers would shrink. When the ice came back, the sovereigns of the north would reclaim their rightful place.
