Disputes on when people occupied the Arctic, don't cease in the scientific world many decades. Now in the prestigious scientific magazine Science there was article of the Russian researchers in which they in details consider this question. Paleontologists from St. Petersburg were come to the rescue by an unusual find: it is about carcass of a mammoth which was found near meteorological station of Sopochnaya the Hag in 2012. Nakhodka called unique, after all I remained not only a skeleton, but also fragments of a skin, meat, fat and even a number of internals. The mammoth was named Zhenya, the attention of scientists from around the world was at once riveted on it.

Already then cuts on bones of an animal, and also traces of copies and other tools were revealed. It means that the being fell a victim of hunters who traded in those places about 45 thousand years ago. Calculation of a share of radioactive carbon-14 in fabrics helped to establish age of hulk. That the part of an animal remained unfinished, according to scientists, says that people of that time had no lack of food.

The mammoth Zhenya can change our understanding about settling of the Arctic. According to the presented conclusions of the Russian scientists, people got there on 10–15 thousand years earlier, than was considered earlier. But how they survived in the conditions of so strong cold? Scientists believe what exactly hunting for mammoths and played in it a key role. At the expense of it the first populations were provided with enough food, and people had an opportunity to occupy the Arctic areas of Siberia and to reach the Bering Strait. These conclusions also mean that the first people could occupy and America much earlier, than it is considered to be.

Nakhodka allowed to find out technology of hunting for mammoths. Wounds on Zhenya's skull say that people aimed a spear in the trunk basis. It led to a rupture of a set of arteries and fast death of an animal from blood loss. Similar, by the way, it is possible to see something on the example of inhabitants of Africa who hunt on elephants.

Now different researchers even more often say that hunting for these animals became the reason of disappearance of mammoths. But one of authors of article in the Science magazine Vladimir Pitulko considers that the leading role in it was played by a climatic factor. At first mammoths tried to disappear from climate changes in areas, more favorable for them. The final end to their existence was put with that these regions were already populated with people who began to exterminate the remained mammoths.

Ilya Vedmedenko

Source: http://naked-science.ru/article/sci/lyudi-zaselili-arktiku-45-tys