New Complex Investigations of the Novhorod-Siverskyi Upper Palaeolithic Site

In the article the materials of the Novhorod-Siverskyi site research both in the 1930's, and relatively recently, are analyzed. First of all, attention is paid to the faunal collection. The faunal associations from old excavations are coherent, typical of a cold steppe environment from the glacial period, near a riparian forest. However, it seems to result to a mix between natural taphonomic complexes and animal remains associated with human activity. Judging by the flint collection from the old excavations, the site was inhabited by representatives of the Pushkari type. New research yielded two archaeological layers that are very poor in flint artefacts. Concerning fauna, the faunal spectrum is restricted in both layers, with the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the horse and the reindeer in the lower and upper layers. In the upper layer there are also the bison, the fox and the hare. According to taphonomic observations, the bones had remained for a long time at an open air before being buried, in subsurface in a wet environment but few submitted to precipitations in link with permafrost activities. Particularly in the lower layer (2) some remains appear to be in place, while others seem to have been imported by hydraulic phenomena, either from the top of the promontory or from the Desna River. In the upper layer (1), some bones show possible anthropogenic impacts of breakage, linked to marrow recovery. In both layers we have some cranial and postcranial elements, mainly from adults sensu lato which could correspond to human predation. They could correspond to temporary camps of quite small human groups, potentially occupied at the end of the cold season/beginning of the warm season.

Collapse of the mammoth-steppe in central Yukon as revealed by ancient environmental DNA

The temporal and spatial coarseness of megafaunal fossil records complicates attempts to to disentangle the relative impacts of climate change, ecosystem restructuring, and human activities associated with the Late Quaternary extinctions. Advances in the extraction and identification of ancient DNA that was shed into the environment and preserved for millennia in sediment now provides a way to augment discontinuous palaeontological assemblages. Here, we present a 30,000-year sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) record derived from loessal permafrost silts in the Klondike region of Yukon, Canada. We observe a substantial turnover in ecosystem composition between 13,500 and 10,000 calendar years ago with the rise of woody shrubs and the disappearance of the mammoth-steppe (steppe-tundra) ecosystem. We also identify a lingering signal of Equus sp. (North American horse) and Mammuthus primigenius (woolly mammoth) at multiple sites persisting thousands of years after their supposed extinction from the fossil record.

Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Woolly mammoth tusk hunting has become a black-market industry in the Siberian region of Yakutia, where thawing permafrost due to climate change is revealing the bodies of thousands of mammoths. They are often in a state of incredible preservation, and their accompanying tusks can be sold to China where they are carved into ornaments as a marker of status. Alongside tusk hunting, another potential industry has emerged: de-extinction. Many of the mammoths found on the tundra have potentially viable DNA that might be used to resurrect a mammoth through genetic technology. Mammoth de-extinction is a cryopolitical process – a focus on the preservation and production of life at a genetic level through cold storage. 'Cryobanks' have emerged as a way to safeguard endangered and extinct species' genetic material, and forms part of a turn towards pre-empting conservation crises during what some scholars are calling the 'sixth great extinction.' The mammoth's body is broken down into pieces – tusks form luxury commodity chains, whilst flesh and blood is parceled into frozen genes and cells. The mammoth in the freezer is indicative of a reorganization of cold life in a warming world, with the specific cryopolitics found in the cryobank an attempt at extending human control over planetary processes that are now seemingly out of control. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken at the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, Siberia, and at the Natural History Museum's cryobank in London, I follow the mammoth from permafrost, to freezer, to back outside, and consider how her de-extinction is a response to a particular sort of future crisis –that of our own extinction.

Meta-proteomic analysis of the Shandrin mammoth by EVA technology and high-resolution mass spectrometry: what is its gut microbiota telling us?

During the last decade, paleoproteomics allowed us to open a direct window into the biological past, improving our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships of extant and extinct species, past human diseases, and reconstruction of the human diet. In particular, meta-proteomic studies, mainly carried out on ancient human dental calculus, provided insights into past oral microbial communities and ancient diets. On the contrary, very few investigations regard the analysis of ancient gut microbiota, which may enable a greater understanding of how microorganisms and their hosts have co-evolved and spread under the influence of changing diet practices and habitat. In this respect, this paper reports the results of the first-ever meta-proteomic analysis carried out on a gut tissue sample some 40,000 years old. Proteins were extracted by applying EVA (ethylene–vinyl acetate) films to the surface of the gut sample of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenus), discovered in 1972 close to the Shandrin River (Yakutia, Russia), and then investigated via a shotgun MS-based approach. Proteomic and peptidomic analysis allowed in-depth exploration of its meta-proteome composition. The results were validated through the level of deamidation and other diagenetic chemical modifications of the sample peptides, which were used to discriminate the “original” endogenous peptides from contaminant ones. Overall, the results of the meta-proteomic analysis here reported agreeing with the previous paleobotanical studies and with the reconstructed habitat of the Shandrin mammoth and provided insight into its diet. The data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with identifier < PXD025518 > .

Lifetime mobility of an Arctic woolly mammoth

Little is known about woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) mobility and range. Here we use high temporal resolution sequential analyses of strontium isotope ratios along an entire 1.7-meter-long tusk to reconstruct the movements of an Arctic woolly mammoth that lived 17,100 years ago, during the last ice age. We use an isotope-guided random walk approach to compare the tusk’s strontium and oxygen isotope profiles to isotopic maps. Our modeling reveals patterns of movement across a geographically extensive range during the animal’s ~28-year life span that varied with life stages. Maintenance of this level of mobility by megafaunal species such as mammoth would have been increasingly difficult as the ice age ended and the environment changed at high latitudes.

Steller’s sea cow genome suggests this species began going extinct before the arrival of Paleolithic humans

Anthropogenic activity is the top factor directly related to the extinction of several animal species. The last Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) population on the Commander Islands (Russia) was wiped out in the second half of the 18th century due to sailors and fur traders hunting it for the meat and fat. However, new data suggests that the extinction process of this species began much earlier. Here, we present a nuclear de novo assembled genome of H. gigas with a 25.4× depth coverage. Our results demonstrate that the heterozygosity of the last population of this animal is low and comparable to the last woolly mammoth population that inhabited Wrangel Island 4000 years ago. Besides, as a matter of consideration, our findings also demonstrate that the extinction of this marine mammal starts along the North Pacific coastal line much earlier than the first Paleolithic humans arrived in the Bering sea region.