Famed fossil isn't a bird after all, analysis says (Archaeopteryx)

One of the world's most famous fossil creatures, widely considered the earliest known bird, is getting a rude present on the 150th birthday of its discovery: A new analysis suggests it isn't a bird at all.

Chinese scientists are proposing a change to the evolutionary family tree that boots Archaeopteryx off the "bird" branch and onto a closely related branch of birdlike dinosaurs.

Archaeopteryx (ahr-kee-AHP'-teh-rihx) was a crow-sized creature that lived about 150 million years ago. It had wings and feathers, but also quite un-birdlike traits like teeth and a bony tail. Discovered in 1861 in Germany, two years after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," it quickly became an icon for evolution and has remained popular since.

The Chinese scientists acknowledge they have only weak evidence to support their proposal, which hinges on including a newly recognized dinosaur.

Other experts say the change could easily be reversed by further discoveries. And while it might shake scientific understanding within the bird lineage, they said, it doesn't make much difference for some other evolutionary questions.

Archaeopteryx dwells in a section of the family tree that's been reshuffled repeatedly over the past 15 or 20 years and still remains murky. It contains the small, two-legged dinosaurs that took the first steps toward flight. Fossil discoveries have blurred the distinction between dinosaurlike birds and birdlike dinosaurs, with traits such as feathers and wishbones no longer seen as reliable guides.

"Birds have been so embedded within this group of small dinosaurs ... it's very difficult to tell who is who," said Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University, who studies early bird evolution but didn't participate in the new study.

The proposed reclassification of Archaeopteryx wouldn't change the idea that birds arose from this part of the tree, he said, but it could make scientists reevaluate what they think about evolution within the bird lineage itself.

"Much of what we've known about the early evolution of birds has in a sense been filtered through Archaeopteryx," Witmer said. "Archaeopteryx has been the touchstone... (Now) the centerpiece for many of those hypotheses may or may not be part of that lineage."

The new analysis is presented in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and colleagues. They compared 384 specific anatomical traits of 89 species to figure out how the animals were related. The result was a tree that grouped Archaeopteryx with deinonychosaurs, two-legged meat-eaters that are evolutionary cousins to birds.

But that result appeared only when the analysis included a previously unknown dinosaur that's similar to Archaeopteryx, which the researchers dubbed Xiaotingia zhengi. It was about the size of a chicken when it lived some 160 million years ago in the Liaoning province of China, home to many feathered dinosaurs and early birds.

Julia Clarke of the University of Texas at Austin, who did not participate in the study, said the reclassification appeared to be justified by the current data. But she emphasized the study dealt with a poorly understood section of the evolutionary tree, and that more fossil discoveries could very well shift Archaeopteryx back to the "bird" branch.

Anyway, moving it "a couple of branches" isn't a huge change, and whether it's considered a bird or not is mostly a semantic issue that doesn't greatly affect larger questions about the origin of flight, she said.

Luis Chiappe, an expert in early bird evolution at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County who wasn't part of the new study, said he doesn't think the evidence is very solid.

"I feel this needs to be reassessed by other people, and I'm sure it will be," he said.

Your latest reply is laced with so many personal insults that I hesitate to converse further with you, BJK.

Look at what you wrote!
You began by saying: "The default answer for most defenders of Darwinian evolution is..."
But just three sentences later, "default answer" has magically transubstantiated into "your reply is just a reiteration of Darwinian dogma".

My dear colleague, a default answer IS a piece of dogma. Darwin asserted the basics of evolution -- adaption to a changing environment through incremental mutations, with 'survival of the fittest' being the result. This has become dogma for most biologists, even when there is overall evidence that all of Nature and each creature within it is far too complex to be the result of meadnering molecules (if you will excuse the phrase). Saying that all living things are as they are because of natural selection without reference to a guiding intelligence is just as dogmatic as saying life is as it is because 'God created it, just like the Bible states in Genesis'. What makes it dogma is nothing inherent in the theory, but rather in the way it is used over and over to reject any alternate hypothesis. IOW, it's only dogma when it cannot be questioned without suffering unending derision by other scientists, which is the case right now in the field of evolution. Granted there are some theories that are risible, but merely to attempt to weave God, or any higher intelligence into the process meets with categorical, and erroneous, name-calling, ie. 'fundamentalist', 'religionist', 'ID believer'. Boy, if your concept of ID is what you said --
But "Intelligent Design" is something entirely different.
ID suggests -- or hints, or allows people to believe -- without in any way demonstrating, that some being is out there (where?) routinely manipulating DNA to produce new kinds of creatures.
-- then I suggest you are the one who needs to pay more careful attention to the arguments of his opponents. God manipulating DNA from somewhere 'out there'? That's what IDers are supposed to believe? I carefully checked all my posts on this thread and nowhere did I use the phrase "Intelligent Design" to describe my beliefs. But ain't it a convenient panegyric to put a dunce cap on your 'opponent'?

What I actually believe, to make it clear to you, is more in line with what you define as Theistic Evolutionism, "which simply means that God designed, created and manages the Evolution process in order to produce what we see today, especially mankind. And that is in no way a challenge to the theory of Evolution...

Yet I am unfamiliar with the term Theistic Evolutionism. I am an independent thinker. Since you say you do believe TE, it seems we both believe much the same thing about how God and evolution may be integrated.

To be fair, you did not specifically say I believed in Intelligent Design. But you distinctly stated "I'm telling you, your problem here is a religion-based hang-up over the definition of the word "species".

Now how can we have an intelligent conversation sprinkled with clever telepathic psychoanalysis like that? I wish I were so talented myself. Actually, if you re-read my posts, you may find that we are not so far apart. For example, when I asked about why my cat has no feathers, I was not asking "why did not cats imitate birds and substitute feathers for their hair?" Rather, I was asking why, if feathers make good insulation and fur makes good insulation, how do we know why evolution took the course it did (furry mammals instead of featherd mammals)? It's a good question, since it's conceivable that feathers could work on a mammal. Or maybe not. We probably don't know at this point.

But MY point was that whatever state of nature biologists find animals in, no matter how complex or unexpected, they always assert that that creature is how it is because of the mechanistic forces of (oh, that Sacred Word!) Natural Selection. Just saying the magic words 'natural selection' shuts down all errant, heretical thinking, such as perhaps believing that God wanted it that way for purposes we are far too dim to comprehend.

And btw, although I am not precisely an IDer, do I really need anybody's permission to believe that God actually does manipulate DNA to His purposes? It's something I have thought about, but since I can't conceive how this is done, I hold it as a mere possibility. In order for any theory to be accurately labeled 'non-scientific', it must fly in the face of known facts. I am not aware of holding any beliefs that must shun observed data in order to be credible.

FYI, I have seen similar charts like the one you provide in the Time-Life series in which in immersed myself as a child, and in many Biology textbooks and Scientific American articles. What do the lines on these 'trees of life' prove? What does similarity of DNA prove? It proves similarity, lol.

I'd like to consider BrandtMichaels' assertion that "Considering the complexity of DNA proves clearly beyond a shadow of a doubt that one kind does not re-program itself into yet another kind." I actually am open to the idea that DNA is so intelligent that it could receive stimulus from the environment, analyze it, and make appropriate adaptations to itself. That would be a form of intelligent design (without CAPS). What I strongly doubt is that the changes leading to divergent evolution were caused by random mutations resulting from solar radiation or chemical reactions within cells. We know that usually leads to cancer and death, and not spectacularly adapted new species! There is also the fact of punctuated evolution, which is counter-intuitive to gradual random mutations. Intelligence must play a role, and since I believe in God as the Supreme Intelligence, I naturally look to Him/Her (I am Christian/Hindu) as the guiding force behind all life. I believe God has created the Universe, but in such a manner as to leave no fingerprints behind. I believe Life is a mystery that must be solved, and that science and spiritual thought (don't care much for conventional 'religion') must find common ground someday.

-- ARFAR

Sorry, I was away... let's see, where were we?

BrandtMichaels: "You may think that evolution is all solid and proven science but it is clearly a lot of assumptionms mixed w/ conjecture and only a tad little bit of micro-evolution."

{sigh}, I'll say it all again:
Science in these matters consists of facts (=confirmed observations), hypotheses (=unconfirmed explanations), and theory (=confirmed explanations).

The facts (=confirmed observations) include 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection.
The theory (=confirmed explanation) simply projects these facts backwards in time millions and billions of years and concludes that all, or nearly all, life on earth descended from common ancestors.
This theory is confirmed by evidence in the fossil record, in DNA analyses and by inputs from nearly every other branch of science.

Several hypotheses (=unconfirmed explanations) have been proposed for the origins of life itself.
These include different methods of abiogenesis, panspermia and (potentially) intelligent design.
None of these hypotheses are confirmed, but laboratory work has been reported on possible routes to abiogenesis.

Now, if you'll note carefully, I never used words like "proven" or "solid".
Instead, I said that observations can be "confirmed" and that makes them facts.
Hypotheses which you may describe as "conjecture" need to be much more than that from the beginning.
They need to be based on confirmed observations, and a good hypothesis needs to explain what is known.
A hypothesis can be confirmed, making it a theory, by predicting future discoveries such as those found in fossil records and DNA analyses.

It can also be confirmed by data from other branches of science, such as radiometric dating of geological strata and astronomical estimates of the age of the Universe.

So a confirmed theory is far more than "a lot of assumptions mixed w/conjecture...".

BrandtMichaels: "Considering the complexity of DNA proves clearly beyond a shadow of a doubt that one kind does not re-program itself into yet another kind.
If it were so, you would have to find millions upon millions of transitional fossils showing half formed mutant creatures AND mutated creatures that you would also find among the living life forms."

Nonsense.
The human genome has about 3 billion base pairs of DNA, in which the natural rate of mutations can be measured by comparing DNA's amongst closely related human kin, tribes and ethnic groups.
These DNA differences add up to perhaps one-half of one-tenth of one percent of all 3 billion DNA base pairs.
And that is just what you'd expect if our common human ancestors lived about 200,000 years ago.

More distant relatives (i.e., Neanderthals or chimpanzees) can also be compared, and the number of mutations counted up.
These comparisons show Neanderthals with about 3 million DNA differences (=.1%) and chimps with 30 million differences (=1%).
And these correspond to fossil records suggesting common ancestors with Neanderthals about 700,000 years ago, chimpanzees about 7 million years ago).

My point is: evidence is consistent with theory.

As for "transitional fossils", I'll say it again: every fossil is "transitional" between whatever went before it, and what may have come after.
And, for pre-human species alone, we have fossils or bones of about two dozen:

Bottom line: every generation descends with some modifications, but "natural selection" -- aka, "survival of the fittest" -- is what prevents, in your words, "millions upon millions of transitional fossils showing half formed mutant creatures AND mutated creatures that you would also find among the living life forms."

ARFAR: "Your latest reply is laced with so many personal insults that I hesitate to converse further with you, BJK."

I too find your words insulting to my intelligence and person, but, hey, I've never let that stop me before, so why start now? ;-)

ARFAR: "My dear colleague, a default answer IS a piece of dogma."

You are (no doubt deliberately) ignoring my point: whether "default" or "dogma" the words you next claimed were mine were not.
So, in assigning those particular words to me you told, let's not just beat around the bush, you told a lie.
And, my point is: if that's what they taught you to do in your philosophy classes, then you need to demand a refund, for mis-education, FRiend.

ARFAR: "Darwin asserted the basics of evolution -- adaption to a changing environment through incremental mutations, with 'survival of the fittest' being the result. This has become dogma for most biologists..."

That's not "dogma", it's a confirmed theory, confirmed in many ways, including fossil records and DNA analyses.
Somewhere, you should have learned the difference between religious "dogma" (=doctrine) and a scientific hypothesis-cum-theory.
They are in no way related.

ARFAR: "...there is overall evidence that all of Nature and each creature within it is far too complex to be the result of meadnering molecules (if you will excuse the phrase).
Saying that all living things are as they are because of natural selection without reference to a guiding intelligence is just as dogmatic as saying life is as it is because 'God created it, just like the Bible states in Genesis'. "

Now you've said a real mouthful, and I'm not certain where to begin unpacking it all...

The facts (=confirmed observations) show modifications in every generation.
The facts also show that nature only selects non-harmful modifications for survival.

Evolution theory says that helpful modifications can be naturally selected and accumulate over time until one sub-species population can no longer interbreed with another.
At some point in the process (i.e., zebras, donkeys & horses), scientists will stop calling them "sub-species" and begin calling them separate "species."

Projected backwards over millions and billions of years, this process can be shown through DNA to account for virtually all life on earth.

As for God's undoubted role in evolution, this has nothing to do with science, and cannot even be addressed by science as such.
That's because, by definition the word "science" deals only with natural causes of natural phenomena.
So, what you and I might see as the obvious "hand of God" at work, science as such can only describe as "random mutations."

Of course, you should have learned all this in class -- it goes by the name of "theistic evolutionism."
It's what most Christian denominations teach, and also what I believe.
"Theistic evolutionism" in no way challenges the science of evolution, it merely says that God obviously designed, created and manages the process from the beginning, for the purpose of producing just what we see today, especially mankind.

ARFAR: "What makes it dogma is nothing inherent in the theory, but rather in the way it is used over and over to reject any alternate hypothesis.
IOW, it's only dogma when it cannot be questioned without suffering unending derision by other scientists, which is the case right now in the field of evolution. "

In science, anyone can question anything.
But if you question, for example, whether two plus two must equal four, then no one will take you very seriously.
Of course, if you were some kind of Einstein Jr., and could demonstrate through Relativity, Uncertainty and Chaos Theory that two plus two might equal something else, then serious scientists might pay you some heed.
But you would certainly have to be as good as Einstein was to make such a proposal.

And, my point is: in the case of evolution theory, nothing remotely resembling Einstein's relativity has been proposed to contradict the old "Newtonian" / Darwinian explanations.

ARFAR: "Granted there are some theories that are risible, but merely to attempt to weave God, or any higher intelligence into the process meets with categorical, and erroneous, name-calling, ie. 'fundamentalist', 'religionist', 'ID believer'."

You were supposed to learn in science class the definition of the word "science."
Science is "methodological naturalism", meaning it consists only of natural explanations for natural phenomena.
The moment you introduce some super-natural concept like "God", then it is no longer "science", and science can't deal with it.

And why would you want to?
Let science be science.
Most Christians and other believers simply understand that what science calls "random" was in fact the Hand of God at work in the World.
It's no more complicated than that.
So why beat yourself up over it?

ARFAR: "What I actually believe, to make it clear to you, is more in line with what you define as Theistic Evolutionism..."
"Yet I am unfamiliar with the term Theistic Evolutionism. "

It's a good term, nothing wrong with it, and you should have learned it in school. ;-)

The moment you introduce some super-natural concept like "God", then it is no longer "science", and science can't deal with it.

It is apparent that it's you who can't deal with it.
As long as God is defined as a guiding intelligence, sciencists can look for evidence of intentional vs unintentional design in evolution. Things that are difficult to explain by mechanistic process leave room for believing in an intelligent designer. Things that are proven impossible to occur, (or at least unlikely to the point of astronomically high odds against it) actually do prove, statistically, a hidden, intelligent designer. Most people think of an intelligent designer as God, but God, per se, is not the issue.

I am not sure that irreducible complexity has been proven, or will be. As to the statistical likelihood of mutations producing healthy, viable new species, I am in serious doubt. However, that's a question, precisely the central question now at issue. It is ongoing as we speak. What ticks me off is how most defenders of the traditional neo-Darwinian explanations cannot, and will not, even entertain the notion of ID. As if it were inherently irrational from a scientific perspective ('that does not compute'). I say it is NOT irrational, since science is very good at distinguishing chance coindicence from intentional results. Ask any forensic scientist.

Note that I am not questioning 99% of evolution that you find in textbooks. Nor am I demanding recognition of ID or any other new theory as equal to the current theory. In fact, I would reject out-of-hand most of what it touted as Creation Science because it does contradict established facts.

If one were to visit a planet in a distant solar system, and if one found the unmistakeable ruins of a building, one would reasonably conclude that intelligent beings designed it. Now the DNA that builds and runs our bodies is on the order of millions of times more complex that a mere building. In the absence of a scientific demonstration of just how that DNA molecule arose, or could have been created solely by natural forces, I say the hypothesis of an intelligent creator is the most rational explanation. The same applies to the formation of new species, although the case for an intelligent designer is much weaker, since mutations are known to occur, and thus the possibility (but not the likelihood) of natural selection may account for all the billions of species that exist and have existed on Earth.

Well, that's it and have a good day, BroJoeK.

-- ARFAR

ARFAR: "It is apparent that it's you who can't deal with it."

Nonsense.
I am merely explaining what you should have learned in science class: that "science" as such deals only with natural causes of natural phenomena.
So, by definition, if you introduce some super-natural explanation (i.e., God), then it is no longer "science" and now becomes some other subject such as theology or philosophy -- and those are not matters that science, by definition, can speak to.

But I can speak to them all day long, and will if you wish to debate them.

ARFAR: "As long as God is defined as a guiding intelligence, sciencists can look for evidence of intentional vs unintentional design in evolution."

Then it would be an exercise in theology, or philosophy, but not science.
Indeed, remember this: there is no scientific hypothesis of "Intelligent Design" which can be tested or falsified, so any such assumption must be an act of faith, which of course falls outside the realm of science.

ARFAR: "Things that are difficult to explain by mechanistic process leave room for believing in an intelligent designer.
Things that are proven impossible to occur, (or at least unlikely to the point of astronomically high odds against it) actually do prove, statistically, a hidden, intelligent designer. "

All analyses along these lines that I've seen are bogus to the max -- and insults to the intelligence of readers.
And the reason should be obvious: if we say of everything we don't yet understand, "God did it", then every new discovery -- and every new explanation -- pushes God further and further away from the here and now.

But the real Truth of the matter is that regardless of whether we think we understand the natural causes and effects of any particular phenomenon, God is still the Creator of all, still the Reason for all, and still the Purpose Giver for everything we see.
So, God's role in evolution is independent of whether we think we understand just precisely how He accomplish any particular miracle of life on Earth.

Indeed, you have to suppose that God has a great sense of humor, and hugely enjoys watching our little scientists noodling and scratching their heads over some new mystery that God left for them to figure out.
And like any good Father, God must celebrate every time His children score well on a test, or graduate to the next grade.

ARFAR: "As to the statistical likelihood of mutations producing healthy, viable new species, I am in serious doubt.
However, that's a question, precisely the central question now at issue. It is ongoing as we speak. "

No it's not. There's no debate on this, not amongst scientists.
And the reason, I've tried to explain now many times is: in nature itself, there is no such thing as a "species".
The word "species" (and all such: breed, sub-species, genus, order, family, etc.) is strictly a scientific construct intended to help us understand what nature does.
But in nature itself, there are only various populations of creatures, some of which can interbreed and others which cannot.
If one sub-group gets somehow separated from its main population and for many generations begins to evolve on its own, then they will eventually reach the point where they can no longer successfully interbreed with their original group.

I've mentioned some well known examples -- from zebras, donkeys and horses, to brown and polar bears, to elephants, mammoths & mastodons.
The case of horses and donkeys is particularly interesting, because here we see evolution "caught in the act", so to speak, of changing a sub-species which can interbreed into a separate species which cannot.

ARFAR: "In the absence of a scientific demonstration of just how that DNA molecule arose, or could have been created solely by natural forces, I say the hypothesis of an intelligent creator is the most rational explanation. "

It is certainly not, and for several reasons, including:
First and foremost, it makes God's role in nature dependent on whether or not some scientist can discover a natural mechanism -- it means that every new scientific discovery pushes the unknown and God further and further away from the here and now.
And that should be ludicrous.

Second, the issue is never "did God do it?", but always "how did God do it?".
Does God intervene on a daily basis to put things back on course, or did He design the Universe from the beginning to produce the results we see?
I believe the latter.
I also think (contrary to what Einstein said) that God is a great gambler who loves the actions of seemingly "random" events, but for whom all the decks are stacked, and all the dice are loaded to produce the results He intended from the beginning.

ARFAR: "The same applies to the formation of new species, although the case for an intelligent designer is much weaker, since mutations are known to occur, and thus the possibility (but not the likelihood) of natural selection may account for all the billions of species that exist and have existed on Earth."

And that is just the mind-set I'm trying to steer you away from.
God's role as "Intelligent Designer" has nothing to do with whether mutations and natural selection alone can account for "all the billions of species that exist and have existed on Earth."

Can't you see it?
God designed the system perfectly, from the beginning, to produce the results we see today.
There is no need -- unless He wants to -- for God to, in effect, "get His hands dirty" by mucking around in the day-to-day wanderings of DNA mutations.
Remember, God is in no hurry -- if it takes a million years, or a billion years, to accomplish His purpose, that's all the same to Him.

So, the Universe is designed to produce us, and now some 14 billion years later, here we are!

Thank God!!

:-)

BrandtMichaels: "The hair on these mammoths was shown scientifically to be for cooling purposes.
They each had a dietary need for roughly 40 lbs of vegetation daily therefore the arctic was not cold when they were thriving there [more likely lush and tropical], but they were all killed in an ice storm of epic proportions."

Those are testable claims which I'm certain have been shown false.
The first obvious observation is: Elephants, rhinoceroses & other large mammals which live in hot climates have minimal hair, and do have other features to shed excess heat -- i.e., large ears.
When remains of similar animals are found in the arctic, they have long hair and smaller ears.
We can see that same long hair today on arctic muskox:

Second, your claim that mammoths need 40 pounds of vegetation per day, and this is supposedly not available in the arctic, is nonsense when you consider that today's arctic supports half a million caribou in Alaska alone.
So any suggestion that it could not support smaller herds of mammoths is just ludicrous.

Third, climates in ancient times can easily be determined by, among other methods, examining the remains of plants and animals found in geological strata.
If those plants are of species which grow in the tropics then we know the climate was warm, but if they are arctic plants, then we know it was colder.

So here's what we know: for the last several million years, arctic climates have alternated between deep-freeze ice ages of about 100,000 years followed by 10,000 to 20,000 years of warmer "interglacials" such as we have now.
And so far, the earliest woolly mammoth remains date to about 150,000 years ago, and the last about 10,000 years ago.
This time period includes the current plus one previous warm interglacial, with all of the time between being very deep-freeze ice-age climate.

Fourth, the final extinction of woolly mammoths about 10,000 years ago corresponds to warming climate, which caused a 90% reduction in suitable cold-climate mammoth habitat.

As for Dr. Walt Brown's lunacies, I'll have to leave that for someone else to deal with.

Bottom line: any suggestion that artic climates were relatively warm during most of the past ice ages is not supported by any evidence I know of.

I recalled incorrectly regarding vegetation of 40 lbs daily - per Walt’s book below...

Abundant Food. A typical wild elephant requires about 330 pounds of food per day. Therefore, vast quantities of food were needed to support the estimated 5,000,000 mammoths that lived in just a small portion of northern Siberia. Adams’ mammoth, discovered in 1799, “was so fat ... that its belly hung below its knees.”109 How was abundant food available inside the Arctic Circle, especially during winter months when the Sun rarely shines?

Warm Climate. Abundant food requires a temperate climate, much warmer than northern Siberia today—or during the Ice Age. Little of the food found in Berezovka’s mouth and stomach grows near the Arctic Circle today. Furthermore, the flower fragments in its stomach show that it died during warm weather. Despite the popular misconception, the mammoth was a temperate—not an Arctic—animal.

Frozen Muck. Mammoth carcasses are almost exclusively encased in frozen muck.112 Also buried in muck are huge deposits of trees and other animal and vegetable matter. The origin of muck is a mystery.

Sudden Freezing. Some frozen mammoths and rhinoceroses had food preserved in their mouths, stomachs, or intestines.113

Suffocation. At least three mammoths and two rhinoceroses suffocated. No other cause of death has been established for the remaining frozen giants.

Dirty Lungs. Dima’s respiratory and digestive tract contained silt, clay, and small particles of gravel. Just before he died, Dima breathed air and/or ate food containing such matter.

Peppered Tusks. Why, over wide geographical areas, did millimeter-size particles (rich in iron and nickel) become embedded in one side of some mammoth tusks?

BrandtMichaels: "A typical wild elephant requires about 330 pounds of food per day."

Response:

"An adult elephant consumes 140–270 kg (300–600 lb) of food a day."

BrandtMichaels: "Therefore, vast quantities of food were needed to support the estimated 5,000,000 mammoths that lived in just a small portion of northern Siberia."

Response:

"A 2008 study by scientists at Spain's Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales estimated that changes in climate shrank suitable mammoth habitat from 7,700,000 km2 (2,970,000 sq mi) 42,000 years ago to 800,000 km2 (310,000 sq mi) 6,000 years ago.
Although woolly mammoths survived an even greater loss of habitat at the end of the Saale glaciation 125,000 years ago..."

That is a 90% reduction in "suitable mammoth habitat".
"Suitable mammoth habitat" means taiga to tundra -- low to high arctic, an area which grew to 3 million square miles during peak ice-age conditions and shrank to 300,000 square miles during warmer Interglacials -- such as today.

So the number of mammoths who could live in prime habitat would rise and fall by a factor of ten, depending on climate change.

BrandtMichaels: "How was abundant food available inside the Arctic Circle, especially during winter months when the Sun rarely shines?"

Response:
Since no herbivore can eat frozen ground, we have to assume that woolly mammoths, like other arctic animals today, migrated along with the seasons.
They may also have moved, like muskoxen: from lower valleys in summer to higher snow-free slopes in winter.

The bottom line here is: the climate and land itself would determine -- as in does today in wild areas of Africa and India -- how many mammoths could survive, on average, per square mile of suitable habitat.
Was it, on average, ten per square mile, or just one?
In either case, the total population of woolly mammoths would fluctuate drastically as climate and habitat changed.

BrandtMichaels: "Despite the popular misconception, the mammoth was a temperate—not an Arctic—animal."

Response:

"Woolly mammoths lived in two groups which are speculated to be divergent enough to be characterised as subspecies.
One group stayed in the middle of the high Arctic, while the other group had a much wider range."

BrandtMichaels: "Peppered Tusks. Why, over wide geographical areas, did millimeter-size particles (rich in iron and nickel) become embedded in one side of some mammoth tusks?"

Response:
Without more data, no explanation is possible.
Did all these mammoths die together, or spread over hundreds of thousands of years?
Did these alleged particles all land on one side -- say of the prevailing winds -- or did they come from random directions?
My first guess would be that we're talking about deposits from dust storms.

Worldwide taiga:

Worldwide tundra:

Typical tiaga country:

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