Mercury in Hair of Mammoth and Other Prehistorical Mammals as a Proxy of Hg Level in the Environment Associated with Climate Changes

Abstract

The paper presents the first results of Hg determination in the hair of prehistorical animals (woolly mammoth, steppe bison, and woolly rhino). Hair of prehistorical mammals can be used as an archive that preserves changes of environmental pollution at the paleoscale. The aim of our study was to assess the levels of Hg exposure of ancient animals and to understand whether Hg concentration in hair could be used as a proxy indicating changes of mercury levels in the environment following global climate changes. We assessed changes of Hg exposure recorded in hairs of seven specimens of mammoth fauna mammals that inhabited the Yakutia region in the period from 45 to 10 ka yr BP. Hg concentrations in hair varied from 0.017 to 0.177 µg/g; the lowest Hg concentration were determined in older specimens (45–33 kyr yr BP). The two highest concentrations belonged sample from the Last Glacial Maximum and the Karginian interstadial (57–24 kyr BP) periods. Our hypothesis is the increase of Hg concentrations in hair reflecting environmental Hg level might be forced by high dust load in cold periods and thawing permafrost in warm climatic periods. Long-term variations of Hg level recovered from Ice Age animals’ hair correlate with Hg profiles of concentration and deposition reconstructed from the Antarctica ice core.

Keywords

• mercury
• mammoth fauna mammals
• hair
• environmental changes
• paleoclimate
• Pleistocene