== Extinction ==

{{main|Pleistocene megafauna}}

[[Image:Coelodonta.jpg|thumb|left|Carcass with skin, as found in asphalt deposits in Starunia Oil Field, Poland, 1929]]

Many species of Pleistocene [[megafauna]], like the woolly rhinoceros, became extinct around the same time period. Human and [[Neanderthal]] [[hunting]] is often cited as one cause.<ref name=diamond>{{cite book |title=Guns, Germs and Steel |last=Diamond |first=Jared |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1997 |publisher=Vintage |location=New York |isbn=0099302780 |pages= |url= }}</ref> Other theories for the cause of the extinctions are climate change associated with the receding [[Ice age]] and the hyperdisease hypothesis.<ref name=grayson>{{cite journal |last=Grayson |first=D. K. |authorlink= |coauthors=Meltzer, D. J. |year=2003 |month= |title=A requiem for North American overkill |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=30 |issue= |pages=585–593 |id= |url=http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/requiem-overkill.pdf |accessdate= |quote= }}</ref>

Its shape was known only from prehistoric cave drawings until a completely preserved specimen (missing only the fur and hooves) was discovered in a [[tar pit]] in [[Starunia]], [[Poland]]. The specimen, an adult female, is now on display in the [[Polish Academy of Sciences]]'s Museum of Natural History in [[Kraków]]. The woolly rhinoceros roamed much of [[Northern Europe]] and was common in the then cold, arid desert that is [[southern England]] and the [[North Sea]] today. During Greenland Stadial 2 (The [[Last Glacial Maximum]]) the North Sea did not exist as sea levels were up to {{convert|125|m|ft|abbr=off|lk=off}} lower than today.

[[Image:Wooly rhinoceros.jpg|thumb|Restoration by [[Charles R. Knight]] ]]

The woolly rhinoceros co-existed with [[woolly mammoth]]s and several other extinct larger mammals. No specimens have been dated in the U.K. after 15,000 [[Radiocarbon dating|¹⁴C]] years B.P.{{Fact|date=April 2007}}

Recent [[radiocarbon dating]] indicates that populations survived as recently as [[8th millennium BC|8,000 B.C.]] in Western [[Siberia]]. However, the accuracy of this date is uncertain as several radiocarbon plateaus exist around this time. The extinction does not coincide with the end of the last ice age but does coincide however, with a minor yet severe climatic reversal that lasted for about 1,000&ndash;1,250 years, the [[Younger Dryas]] (GS1 - Greenland Stadial 1), characterized by glacial readvances and severe cooling globally, a brief interlude in the continuing warming subsequent to the termination of the last major ice age (GS2), thought to have been due to a shutdown of the [[thermohaline circulation]] in the ocean due to huge influxes of cold, fresh water from the preceding sustained glacial melting during the warmer Interstadial (GI1 - Greenland Interstadial 1 - ca.&nbsp;16,000 - 11,450 ¹⁴C years B.P.).

A relative, the hairy [[sumatran rhinoceros]] (''Dicerorhinus sumatrensis''), still lives in [[Southeast Asia]], as an [[endangered species]].