Discovery Reveals Humans Made Early Trek Into The Arctic

Mammoth remains discovered in a Siberian plain reveal humans had gravitated farther north much earlier than previously believed. The remains show signs of human hunters taking down the mammoth with their crude weapons...some 45,000 years ago in the Arctic, about ten millennia earlier than researchers had anticipated. This makes the discovery's location — near a former land bridge connecting Asia with the Americas — particularly interesting.

The mammoth remains were discovered in 2012 in the central portion of the Siberian Arctic. Upon studying the remains, researchers found it was about 45,000 years old. Most interesting, though, were the marks on the bones ascribed to human weapons like stone spears. A cut on the cheekbone, trauma on the right tusk, and rib bone dents all point toward human hunters.

The discovery is a monumental one, indicating that — if the findings prove to be true — humans had begun their journey out of Africa and Eurasia considerably earlier than scientists have long believed. According to anthropologist Vladimir Pitulko, the hunters were modern humans, not Neanderthals.

Also of interest is the mammoth's proximity to the Bering Strait, which is about 2,500 miles away from the discovery site. Said Pitulko to Smithsonian, "It's a long way to go, but they would have had thousands of years to make the journey ... at least now we know that humans were in the area."

SOURCE: Smithsonian