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Figure 1.2. Distribution of vegetation in North and Central America today if there were no
agriculture (i.e., conditions circa 500 years ago) (Adams and Faure, 1997).
including grasses, sedges, herbs, dwarf birch and willow provided a highly
nutritious rangeland capable of supporting the [fauna] giants of the past
. This
mixture of steppe and tundra plants was unlike the tundra or boggy muskeg
found in the region today. Scientists have coined the term 'Mammoth Steppe'
(after the enormous herbivore) to describe this unique environment. Some even
believe that the grazing action of these massive beasts maintained the grassy
landscape, which subsequently disappeared due to the extinction of the mega-
fauna, rather than the other way round. Whatever the reason, Beringia's most
impressive inhabitant was of course the woolly mammoth.''
...
Beringia must have been covered with vegetation even during the coldest part
of the most recent ice age because it supported large populations of woolly
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