How did an 8000-year-old community deal with climate change?

Cosmos Magazine reports that archaeologists including Rick J. Schulting of the University of Oxford have determined that Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, a cemetery on an island in northern Russia’s Lake Onega, was used for a 200-year period during the so-called mini–Ice Age.

Some 8200 years ago, a great sluice of meltwater from a now-vanished ice sheet pulsed into the North Atlantic, causing a mini-Ice Age that lasted for around 200 years. 

Across vast swathes of northern Europe, plant life began to change – broadleaf trees were outcompeted by hardier pines suited to the frigid temperatures – and animals and humans alike would have been forced to adapt to the sudden, drastic changes.

Now, in a new study out today in Nature Ecology & Environment, archaeologists from the University of Oxford have opened a small, misty window into this early Holocene upheaval, to see how one community changed in response. 

The site, the Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (YOO) cemetery in northern Russia, sits on an island in the vast Lake Onega, 350 kilometres northeast of St Petersburg.

Radiocarbon dating of remains in the cemetery shows that it was mainly used for a short window of around 200 years, spanning some 10 generations and that its use coincided with this mini-Ice Age. 

So why might people suddenly decide to organise their dead at a time of stress? The clue, the researchers say, lies in the lake. 

Lake Onega would have been a relative paradise as freezing temperatures closed in. With its own microclimate and lush stores of fish and plant life, it would have drawn big game such as elk to its milder shores, as well as beleaguered humans on the hunt for food. At the same time, shallower lakes in the region would likely have experienced harsh winter fish kills. 

That’s an awful lot of people milling into a small area – a well-known recipe for disaster. But humans are a resilient bunch, and the researchers believe the Lake Onega communities responded by building a more complex, more united society – their cemetery, the final resting place of their loved ones, was yet another display of social belonging and organisation.

The claim is a bold scientific leap, but it’s not unconvincing. Some 200 years on, when the climate improved, the cemetery was abandoned. 

“Whatever ‘complexity’ we see at YOO,” the authors write, “was thus situational and reversible.” 

Did this tight band of people disperse back into the landscape in smaller, nomadic groups? We’ll probably never know the exact truth of the events, but archaeology offers a tantalising vision of an ancient community in flux, at the mercy of a changing climate.

24,000-Year-Old Animal Found Alive After Being Preserved in Siberian Permafrost

During the Upper Paleolithic era, a multicellular organism was frozen almost the time in history when humans first set foot into North America. About 24,000 years later, it has been found alive after sleeping for millennia. 

This turned out to be a very huge discovery and might have changed the theory of how long organisms and perhaps humans can be preserved for generations.

Discovery of Bdelloid Rotifer 

Bdelloid rotifer – a freshwater creature – is too tiny to see with the naked eye, measuring around 150 and 700 μm. The microorganism can be found in waters around the world. This animal survived being frozen for many years through a remarkable means of cloning itself multiple times through an asexual reproduction form called parthenogenesis, according to Accuweather.

This discovery, therefore, brought about questions on the reversible standstill lack of life theory or mechanism of the cryptobiosis.

These findings were done by researchers from the Soil Cryology Laboratory in Pushchino, Russia. It was discovered from a soil sample collected from permafrost in northeastern Siberian.

This age discovery was really surprising to the researcher as it felt really unbelievable that the animal was alive and doing well.

The permafrost sample of this creature was collected from the Alazeya River, which flows from Siberia into the Arctic. Researchers also confirmed that there was no movement of the bdelloid rotifer due to the icy nature of the ground.

Research Findings

“The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life – a dream of many fiction writers,” Malvin, an author on this study stated.

He further talked about how big this discovery was and how it has totally changed the ideology of organism preservation.

This discovery might have been revolutionary and has added to the small number of organisms that have been found to be able to survive such extraordinary timespans but more are still yet to be uncovered.

The more complex an organism becomes, the more difficult it is to preserve alive, like in mammals, as per Smithsonian Magazine.

Other Organisms That Survived Extraordinary Timespans

In Russia, a pair of prehistoric nematodes, also called roundworms, were discovered and successfully revived, it is said to have been between 30,000 and 42,000 years old.

Studies have shown that over the years, a lot of organisms have been revived from their frozen state but what makes this new discovery more interesting is that none of these past organisms is as complex as the bdelloid rotifer.

Additionally, there have been discoveries on the dead but frozen larger species like the 20,000-year-old woolly rhino that was discovered by a Siberian farmer in the area of Yakutia in 2021 and the 57,000-year-old Pleistocene grey wolf puppy, the most perfectly preserved animal of its kind.

More research is still to be made on this study. The hope is that insights from these tiny animals will offer clues as to how better to cryo-preserve the cells, tissues, and organs of other animals, including humans.

Did ‘unicorns’ co-exist with humans? Yes, but they were just rhinos

Sorry, guys, but I’m going to be a killjoy on this one. But first, the good news: According to a study published last month in the American Journal of Applied Science, a species called Elasmotherium sibiricum — the “Siberian unicorn” — went extinct much later than previously thought.

Researchers from Tomsk State University believe they’ve found fossil evidence of a Siberian unicorn prancing around just 29,000 years ago — more than 300,000 years after they were thought to have gone extinct.

Homo sapiens was stomping around by then, which means our ancestors may have encountered this beast.

But, um.

No.

Despite the image on that post, the Siberian unicorn was far from being, you know, a unicorn. It was a rhino.

Note that this finding isn’t cool: Whenever scientists discover evidence that something survived for hundreds of thousands of years past its assumed expiration date, it’s worth noting.

If the fossil — which is just a small fragment of the skull — was correctly categorized and radiocarbon dated, then it suggests that a small group of the species was able to survive in what’s now Kazakhstan, even as the rest of its kind died off.

Figuring out why that happened could help scientists understand how the planet was changing during that period and how resilient these kinds of animals are to climate shifts.

I just don’t get why we’re trying to pretend this rhino was a unicorn.

My roommate tried to convince me:

“Well, what’s the relative length and girth of the horn?”
“I guess it’s slightly longer than a modern rhino.”
“I rest my case.”

So that’s something, I guess. Forbes reports that the horn was “likely multiple feet long.”

Still, I have to agree with Ben Guarino at Inverse, who argues that the Siberian unicorn “was a unicorn in the same way that a seahorse is a mustang.”

We can’t even really entertain the idea that this shaggy beast inspired unicorn mythology, because the time and place it lived just doesn’t jibe with that.

But, hey, scientists and future scientists of the world, take this as a lesson: Giving your newly discovered species (or even your research boat) a good name can go a long way.

Never hesitate to throw in a shout-out to a pop star or a mythical creature. Never. You are not too good at this. Science is not too good for this.

Because in an age when sources of entertainment are literally endless, people all over the world spent this morning reading about the radiocarbon dating of a shaggy ancient rhino.

Golden Pectoral and Bronze Mirror- Discoveries of Archaeologists in a Siberian Barrow

The archaeological site Chinge-Tey is located in the Touran-Uyuk valley in northern Tuva, a republic in the Asian part of the Russian Federation. It is called the ‘Siberian Valley of the Kings’ because of the many large barrows with rich equipment, dating back more than 2.5 thousand years. Some of them are referred to as princely barrows.

Last year, Polish archaeologists from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków discovered two intriguing graves. The first of them was in the central part of a destroyed, almost completely flattened barrow with a diameter of approx. 25 m. Almost invisible to the naked eye, It was detected by aerial laser scanning.

The wooden burial chamber, built in the framework of solid beams, contained the remains of two bodies. The chamber itself was covered with three layers of beams. The floor was covered with planks. According to the researchers, the deceased were a woman who died at the age of approx. 50 years old and a 2-3 years old child.

Next to the remains of the woman, the researchers found gold ornaments, an iron knife, a bronze mirror and a very well preserved wooden comb decorated with engraved ornament.

‘A particularly interesting artefact was a golden pectoral ornament, a decoration hung at the neck in the shape of a sickle or crescent’, says the head of the Polish part of the expedition, Dr Łukasz Oleszczak from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He emphasises that objects of this type, known from mounds in southern Siberia, have so far been found almost exclusively in the graves of men.

‘They were considered symbols of belonging to a social group, caste, perhaps warriors – in any case, men. Its presence in the grave of a woman is a very interesting deviation from this custom. This certainly confirms the unique role of the deceased in the community of the +Valley of the Kings+’, the archaeologist says.

He points out that the woman was buried in the central part of the tomb located in the immediate vicinity of the great barrow that, according to the researchers, belongs to a nomad prince. ‘It seems that, like the others buried in this barrow, she belonged to the prince’s entourage’, says Oleszczak.

He mentions the condition of the grave goods made from organic material. The researchers from the Polish-Russian expedition had previously found arrow shafts, an ice axe handle, a piece of a quiver. The woman’s grave contained a wooden comb connected with a leather loop to a mirror made of bronze. This set of cosmetic items was placed in the grave in a leather pouch.

The second grave discovered in the last season of excavation was located outside the ditch surrounding the barrow. It was the skeleton of a teenage child, placed in a small pit surrounded by stones. It did not contain any equipment.

‘Graves of children on the perimeter or just outside the ditch surrounding the barrow are a typical part of the funeral rites of this early Scythian culture’, adds Dr. Oleszczak.

The archaeologists also found evidence that a treasure of objects made of bronze was most likely deposited around the perimeter of the barrow at some point. Evidence of this is the discovery of tens of horse tack parts, a bronze ice axe, as well as an ornament in the form of a goat.

They were located with a metal detector. According to Dr. Oleszczak, the treasure was scattered by deep ploughing in the 20th century, when a kolkhoz operated near the cemetery.

In 2021, Polish archaeologists continued their research within the barrow they started to excavate two years earlier. Back then, they found two burials – a central, robbed one, and an intact side grave that contained the body of a young warrior, richly equipped with weapons, a knife, a whetstone and gold ornaments. This is one of the 10 tombs located in a row on the north-south axis in the western part of the cemetery.

According to the researchers, the graves come from the 6th century BCE, when the peoples of Scythian origin lived in these areas. According to the experts, it was the Aldy-Bel culture. In the early Scythian period, the Touran-Uyuk valley was one of the most important ritual centres of the Scythian and Siberian worlds. It was from there, from the mountains of southern Siberia, that the people originated who dominated the steppes of Eastern Europe.

The Scythians were known for being warlike. Their achievements have been described, among others, by the famous Greek historian Herodotus.

The research was supported by a grant awarded by the Polish National Science Centre. The excavations were carried out in cooperation with scientists from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, under the supervision of Konstantina V. Chugunova.

Archaeology shock: Ancient skeleton and gold found buried in Siberia’s ‘Valley of Kings’

The incredible archaeological discovery was made by a team of Polish researchers on the Southern Siberian Steppe. This barren part of the Russian Federation is known as the “Siberian Valley of the Kings” thanks to mysterious structures dotting its landscape.

Ancient mounds raised from the ground by a long-lost civilisation, known as kurgan barrows, give a hint as to what lies beneath the soil. Archaeologists from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków made their discovery at the Chinge Tey dig where nine of these kurgans were built in a row.

According to lead archaeologist Dr Łukasz Oleszczak, the Scythian remains date back at least 2,500 years.

He told the Polish Press Agency (PAP): “Inside was the skeleton of a fully equipped young warrior.

“Near the skull of the deceased, there were decorations: a gold sheet pectoral, a glass bead, a gold spiral braid ornament.”

Alongside the warrior’s skeletal remains, the archaeologists have found many of his weapons.

These included an ice axe stylised into the shape of an eagle, an iron dagger, bow fragments and arrows.

Dr Oleszczak added: “Objects made out of organic materials have also been well preserved.

“Among them is a leather quiver, arrow shaft, ice axe shaft and a belt strap.”

The Scythians were an ancient nomadic people who thrived between the 11th century BC and 2nd century AD to the east of the Roman Empire. Scythia covered much of what is today’s Siberia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and even touched upon China.

The Scythians were known for their warmongering practices, as demonstrated by the contents of their burial sites.

Unfortunately, many of the Scythian artefacts buried across Siberia are at risk of disappearing thanks to looters.

According to Dr Oleszczak, the first of two barrows found in Chinge Tey was robbed before the archaeologists uncovered them.

The archaeologists did, however, discover partially preserved bones and an arrowhead.

The researchers will analyse the second kurgan barrow for its contents next year.

The main discovery, however, was made in a third kurgan nearby.

Dr Oleszczak said: “For our research, we chose an inconspicuous, almost invisible kurgan with a diameter of about 25m.

“We had hoped it had remained unnoticed by robbers.”

The Polish archaeologists have joined an international team of researchers at Chinge Tey.

Their discovery comes after another team of archaeologists in Poland found the site of an unusual settlement from 2,500 years ago.

Archaeologists in northern Poland have also two neolithic structures predating the Great Pyramid of Giza by 2,000 years.

Researchers have also found signs of cannibalistic rituals at an ancient burial site in Poland’s Kuyavian-Pomeranian region.