[LINK] "Mammoth bones reveal early human presence in Arctic"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star carried Malcolm Ritter's Associated Press article reporting on suggestive evidence of an early human presence in northern Siberia. This, as some have suggested, has noteworthy implications for the peopling of the Americas as well--why couldn't people have crossed from the Asian Arctic to the American Arctic earlier?

The remains of a mammoth that was hunted down about 45,000 years ago have revealed the earliest known evidence of humans in the Arctic.

Marks on the bones, found in far northern Russia, indicate the creature was stabbed and butchered. The tip of a tusk was damaged in a way that suggests human activity, perhaps to make ivory tools.

With a minimal age estimate of 45,000 years, the discovery extends the record of human presence in the Arctic by at least about 5,000 years.

The site in Siberia, near the Kara Sea, is also by far the northernmost sign of human presence in Eurasia before 40,000 years ago, Vladimir Pitulko of the Russian Academy of Science in St. Petersburg and co-authors reported in a paper released Thursday by the journal Science.

They also briefly report evidence of human hunting at about the same time from a wolf bone found well to the east. That suggests a widespread occupation, although the population was probably sparse, they said.