On the bones of the Sopkarga mammoth (Zhenya's mammoth), found more than 600 km north of the Arctic Circle, archaeologists have found marks clearly made by tools made by man.
Researchers from St. Petersburg analyzed the marks on the bones of the mammoth Zhenya, found in 2012 near the polar station Sopochnaya Karga, and found that they are traces of an ancient man's hunt. The age of the find is at least 45 thousand years, which means that people lived and hunted in Arctic Siberia much earlier than previously thought, Vladimir Pitulko, a senior researcher at the Paleolithic Department of the Institute of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS.
Until recently, the earliest evidence of human presence in the Arctic was between 30,000 and 35,000 years old. However, on the bones of the Sopkarga mammoth (Zhenya's mammoth), found more than 600 km north of the Arctic Circle, Pitulko and his colleagues found marks clearly made by tools made by man. “Based on the totality of dating, the age of Zhenya's mammoth can be estimated at 45 thousand years,” Pitulko said.
Scientists believe that the ancient hunters in this case used the same tactics that are observed among African tribes that hunt elephants. They shower the animal with a large number of small spears, which is why the elephant begins to lose blood. Then they finish him off with heavier spears, forcing him to fall, and, in the end, deliver the final blow to the base of the trunk, where large blood vessels pass. “The people who hunted mammoths in Siberia 45 thousand years ago used the same tactics. We noted damage to the cheekbone associated with the infliction of just such a blow, - said the researcher.
In addition, in 2012, at the site of an ancient man, named Bunge-Tolla 1885, located 240 km north of the Arctic Circle, a wolf bone was found on the Yana River, which was wounded with a sharp point made of mammoth tusk. The age of this find is also about 45 thousand years.
Pitulko also noted that in 2014, near the village of Ust-Ishim in the south of Western Siberia, a human bone of a modern anatomical type was found comparable in age to the remains of the mammoth Zhenya. All of these findings indicate that humans settled in the Arctic earlier than previously thought. The research results are published in the journal Science.
Mammoth Zhenya The Sopkarginsky mammoth, unofficially named Zhenya, was found in 2012 by a schoolboy Zhenya Solinder, who spent his holidays with his parents at the Sopochnaya Karga polar station. Thanks to this find, the researchers received at their disposal a complete mammoth skeleton with a large number of soft tissues - the ligaments, skin, hump were partially preserved. After a comprehensive study at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the mammoth in the form of a half stuffed animal, an assembled skeleton with soft tissues and separate exhibition preparations was transferred to the Taimyr Museum of Local Lore in Dudinka. The work was carried out by taxidermists of the Zoological Museum.