View source for Source:Miller and Roper:Animals in the Book of Mormon:Interpreter:Elephants:Survival until the time of the Jaredites

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|title=Miller and Roper: "This was long enough to bring [mammoths] to the time of the Jaredites"
|category=Book of Mormon/Animals/Elephants
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==Miller and Roper: "This was long enough to bring [mammoths] to the time of the Jaredites"==
Elephants are only mentioned in the Book of Ether. Wade E. Miller and Matthew Roper note that mammoths survived until the time of the Jaredites: <ref>Wade E. Miller and Matthew Roper, [http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/animals-in-the-book-of-mormon-challenges-and-perspectives/ "Animals in the Book of Mormon: Challenges and Perspectives,"] Blog of ''Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture'' (April 21, 2014)</ref>
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Along with a number of large mammals thought to have become extinct about 10,000 years ago, it’s now known that the mammoth survived for a few thousand years longer. This was long enough to bring them to the time of the Jaredites. A date for a mammoth in northern North America was cited at 3,700 years before the present. <ref>S. L. Vartanyan, V. E. Garutt, and A. V. Sher, “Holocene dwarf Mammoths from Wrangle Island in the Siberian Arctic,” ''Nature'' 362 (1993),337-340.</ref>  An Alaskan mammoth was dated at 5,720 years ago. <ref>David R. Yesner, Douglas W. Veltre, Kristine J. Crossen and Russell W. Graham, 5,700-year-old Mammoth Remains from Qagnax Cave, Pribilof Islands, Alaska. In L. D. Agenbroad and R. L. Symington (eds.), ''The World of Elepahants'' (Short Papers and Abstracts of the 2nd International Congress, 2005), 200-204.</ref> In the contiguous United States Mead and Meltzer provided an age of 4,885 years for a dated mammoth specimen. <ref>James I. Mead and David J. Meltzer, “North American late Quaternary extinctions and the radiocarbon record, In P. S. Martin and R. G. Klein (eds.) ''Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution'', (Tucson, University of Arizona Press. 1984), 440-450.</ref> As more mammoth (elephant) finds are made, even younger dates will no doubt arise. Generally, when animal species’ populations decrease, they survive longer in southern refugia. Small populations could  well have survived in Mesoamerica well past the close of the Pleistocene. The fact that known dates of mammoths in Mesoamerica are numerous up to the end of this epoch helps support this view. It should be pointed out that the mammoth never did range as far south as South America.
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