article_snippet.sent: The woolly mammoth became extinct as a result of crippling bone disease that left them unable to fend off predators, according to startling new evidence from Russia.
article_snippet.sent: Until now it was thought that the woolly mammoth simply died out from post-Ice Age climate change and being hunted to extinction by early man (analysis of bones at mammoth 'graveyard' pictured) One mammoth graveyard where many bones have been found is in Lugovskoe, Russia .
article_snippet.sent: Since the 1700s scientists have debated what caused the demise of mammoths.
article_snippet.sent: One popular theory, bolstered by this study, is that Ice Age people hunted most of the mammoths out of existence.
article_snippet.sent: Other researchers argue that an impact of extraterritorial objects in North America 13,000 years ago, led to rapid climate change, eventually wiping out the mammoths.
article_snippet.sent: Roughly the same size as a modern African elephant, the woolly mammoth is widely thought to have become extinct as a direct result of climate change.
article_snippet.sent: The research, if proven true, would provide a somewhat unusual explanation for how woolly mammoths died out .