8 ms·

Siberia's 'mammoth graveyard' reveals 800-year human interactions with mammoths

144 points by wglb 2y ago

_visgean 2y ago
> Sadly, now that human-mammoth relationship has continued as ivory hunters have looted the site beyond further study. Radio free europe had a really good photo essay on these new mammoth pirates: https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html
- shmageggy 2y ago
  That was exellently presented. Clear, informative, compelling. I especially appreciated getting to the end without being bombarded with any ads, popups, or begging for email signups. Curious how I could support such media, I found https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-rfe-rl/ https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-rfe-rl/ which says, > RFE/RL, Inc. is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation funded by the U.S. Congress through a grant from the United States Agency for Global Media... Yay taxes!
  - the_af 2y ago
    > Yay taxes! Well, the RFERL was funded through a CIA front organization, it was mostly an anti-communist propaganda operation. It definitely is/was a "state effort". So yes, taxes.
    - _visgean 2y ago
      you say propaganda, I say truth. > According to certain European politicians such as Petr Nečas, RFE played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the development of democracy in Eastern Europe.[40][41][42] Unlike government-censored programs, RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist movements. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło.[43] Arch Puddington argues that its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland's Poznań riots in 1956 served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution that year.[44] > For the first two days following the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, the official Eastern Bloc media did not report any news about the disaster, nor any full account for another four months. According to the Hoover Institute, the people of the Soviet Union "became frustrated with inconsistent and contradictory reports", and 36% of them turned to Western radio to provide accurate and pertinent information.[58] Listenership at RFE/RL "shot up dramatically" as a "great many hours" of broadcast time were devoted to the dissemination of life-saving news and information following the disaster.[59] Broadcast topics included "precautions for exposure to radioactive fallout" and reporting on the plight of the Estonians who were tasked with providing the clean-up operations in Ukraine.[59]
- danoni 2y ago
  > Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an American government-funded international media organization The purpose of RFERL is to produce news items that are covertly critical of the enemy. It adds up with other resources to paint a negative image of the enemy.
  - yladiz 2y ago
    Which enemy?
    - KeplerBoy 2y ago
      Russia? The west is in a war-like situation with Russia. Portraying them as stupid, drunk rednecks who ravage trough the environment certainly fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's not true though.
      - danoni 2y ago
        There is no direct confrontation because that would be WWIII. Only proxy wars like the one happening now. RFERL is US-government funded, and the audience is mainly eastern Europe. Even PBS in the US is not funded by the US government. Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you do not fund your national public broadcaster?
        _visgean 2y ago
        > Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you do not fund your national public broadcaster? Because the US media market is quite saturated and developed (or at least was when any of this was made into law) compared to countries where media is actively supressed.
        danoni 2y ago
        I don't see that. Quality news reporting is lacking. Investigative journalism is almost dead. The mainstream media is on a war footing. There have been 0 interviews with J Mearsheimer on mainstream US media.
- ljf 2y ago
  Was too stunning and interesting not to be a post in its own right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40643610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40643610
- araes 2y ago
  Funding for RFE/RL aside, neat article, and whoever that was almost got a Half-Life death out in the woods with a crowbar. > Boozy camaraderie is quickly exhausted and the atmosphere turns ugly. One tusker picks up a metal bar and slams it onto a woodpile before turning on me. He pauses for a moment before swiping it above my head. As I back out of the camp, he collapses onto a bench, calling, “Where’s the dog?!” Also, that "Mosquitoes are a near constant plague." image is one of the most disgusting things I think I've seen recently. Pass out drunk and wake up to feet covered with bugs in the morning.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    Some things in life are just impossible to survive without a crate of vodka, it seems.
8bitsrule 2y ago
'Piracy' in this region began in the early 1700s - a quarter-millenium ago. 'Twas easier then though. Here's another long, well-illustrated, little-known tale of exploration of the islands off N. Siberia. Fossil tusks were often found in huge quantities ... some islands covered in them. https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/alaskan-muck-ivory-islands-in-the-arctic/ https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/alaskan-muck-ivor... "One of the most active and successful of the fur-hunters of that time was named Liakoff, and he from time to time obtained great quantities not only of valuable furs, but also of fossil ivory from the tusks and teeth of the mammoths, which he himself collected or received from the native Siberians.... Every year great quantities of ivorv were taken from the islands and sold in the markets at Yakutsk.
joshuaheard 2y ago
If they only killed a mammoth every 6 months, I wonder how they preserved the meat. That area is too far from the ocean to harvest salt. Maybe store it in the snow? What about summer? Smoking the meat would do it. They did find evidence of fire.
- koliber 2y ago
  Maybe they made mammoth jerky.
- houseplant 2y ago
  yeah smoking it or drying it by lying it in strips in the sun. if the air is dry enough it won't rot and will just turn into jerkey which lasts for ages. Many still do it to this day I also just looked this up, but apparently mammoths were still walking the earth as early as only 3000 years ago! I thought it was way farther. The idea to bring them back to northern areas of earth doesnt sound so far fetched
  - kombookcha 2y ago
    It's a pretty fun party fact that by the time the last mammoths died out, the Great Pyramid was already 1500 years old :) It gives me a lot of hope for revival projects that there's relatively 'young' dna to be found. Of course the reduced range towards the end probably means there's not many of these recent sources to source it from, but still!
    - mark_undoio 2y ago
      That flashed me back to a vague memory that the film 10,000BC showed mammoths in use building the pyramids, which I thought was incredibly silly (well, it was...). But it's kind of satisfying to know that the building at least overlapped with the mammoths in real life.
    - surfingdino 2y ago
      WWIV may be fought using mammoths and dinos? What a cool idea! /s
alekseiprokopev 2y ago
I’m from Yakutia and remember sharing a hospital room with a former mammoth hunter. He had many stories to tell.
- WithinReason 2y ago
  Was it a mental hospital, or was he hunting only bones?
farseer 2y ago
For a minute I thought this graveyard involved Stalin and one of his killing sprees.
jimnotgym 2y ago
'Interactions' is a very passive phrase for killing and dismemberment!
- HocusLocus 2y ago
  > 'Interactions' is a very passive phrase for killing and dismemberment! Be wary in modern theme parks. Visitor Interactions is big business in corporate-speak, and it is only so long before they decide to capitalize on this renewable food source.
givemeethekeys 2y ago
[flagged]
world2vec 2y ago
If you're interested in this subject, modern tusk hunters and science-fiction, then let me recommend the book "Tusks of Extinction" (2024) by Ray Nayler [0]. Very interesting read (his previous book "The Mountain in the Sea" (2022) is, however, much better and IMHO one of the best sci-fi books I've read in a long time). [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127284214-the-tusks-of-extinction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127284214-the-tusks-of-e...
phreeza 2y ago
> until their last dated survival 4 kyr ago. Wow I did not realize they survived that long, that's well after the invention of writing for example.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  The first pharaohs and the last woolly mammoths on the Wrangel Island were contemporaries. Of course, as far as travel from Egypt to the Arctic Ocean goes, they could have lived on different planets.

144 points by wglb 2y ago

> Sadly, now that human-mammoth relationship has continued as ivory hunters have looted the site beyond further study. Radio free europe had a really good photo essay on these new mammoth pirates: https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html

shmageggy 2y ago
That was exellently presented. Clear, informative, compelling. I especially appreciated getting to the end without being bombarded with any ads, popups, or begging for email signups. Curious how I could support such media, I found https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-rfe-rl/ https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-rfe-rl/ which says, > RFE/RL, Inc. is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation funded by the U.S. Congress through a grant from the United States Agency for Global Media... Yay taxes!
- the_af 2y ago
  > Yay taxes! Well, the RFERL was funded through a CIA front organization, it was mostly an anti-communist propaganda operation. It definitely is/was a "state effort". So yes, taxes.
  - _visgean 2y ago
    you say propaganda, I say truth. > According to certain European politicians such as Petr Nečas, RFE played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the development of democracy in Eastern Europe.[40][41][42] Unlike government-censored programs, RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist movements. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło.[43] Arch Puddington argues that its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland's Poznań riots in 1956 served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution that year.[44] > For the first two days following the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, the official Eastern Bloc media did not report any news about the disaster, nor any full account for another four months. According to the Hoover Institute, the people of the Soviet Union "became frustrated with inconsistent and contradictory reports", and 36% of them turned to Western radio to provide accurate and pertinent information.[58] Listenership at RFE/RL "shot up dramatically" as a "great many hours" of broadcast time were devoted to the dissemination of life-saving news and information following the disaster.[59] Broadcast topics included "precautions for exposure to radioactive fallout" and reporting on the plight of the Estonians who were tasked with providing the clean-up operations in Ukraine.[59]
danoni 2y ago
> Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an American government-funded international media organization The purpose of RFERL is to produce news items that are covertly critical of the enemy. It adds up with other resources to paint a negative image of the enemy.
- yladiz 2y ago
  Which enemy?
  - KeplerBoy 2y ago
    Russia? The west is in a war-like situation with Russia. Portraying them as stupid, drunk rednecks who ravage trough the environment certainly fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's not true though.
    - danoni 2y ago
      There is no direct confrontation because that would be WWIII. Only proxy wars like the one happening now. RFERL is US-government funded, and the audience is mainly eastern Europe. Even PBS in the US is not funded by the US government. Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you do not fund your national public broadcaster?
      - _visgean 2y ago
        > Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you do not fund your national public broadcaster? Because the US media market is quite saturated and developed (or at least was when any of this was made into law) compared to countries where media is actively supressed.
        danoni 2y ago
        I don't see that. Quality news reporting is lacking. Investigative journalism is almost dead. The mainstream media is on a war footing. There have been 0 interviews with J Mearsheimer on mainstream US media.
ljf 2y ago
Was too stunning and interesting not to be a post in its own right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40643610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40643610
araes 2y ago
Funding for RFE/RL aside, neat article, and whoever that was almost got a Half-Life death out in the woods with a crowbar. > Boozy camaraderie is quickly exhausted and the atmosphere turns ugly. One tusker picks up a metal bar and slams it onto a woodpile before turning on me. He pauses for a moment before swiping it above my head. As I back out of the camp, he collapses onto a bench, calling, “Where’s the dog?!” Also, that "Mosquitoes are a near constant plague." image is one of the most disgusting things I think I've seen recently. Pass out drunk and wake up to feet covered with bugs in the morning.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  Some things in life are just impossible to survive without a crate of vodka, it seems.

8bitsrule 2y ago

'Piracy' in this region began in the early 1700s - a quarter-millenium ago. 'Twas easier then though. Here's another long, well-illustrated, little-known tale of exploration of the islands off N. Siberia. Fossil tusks were often found in huge quantities ... some islands covered in them. https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/alaskan-muck-ivory-islands-in-the-arctic/ https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/alaskan-muck-ivor... "One of the most active and successful of the fur-hunters of that time was named Liakoff, and he from time to time obtained great quantities not only of valuable furs, but also of fossil ivory from the tusks and teeth of the mammoths, which he himself collected or received from the native Siberians.... Every year great quantities of ivorv were taken from the islands and sold in the markets at Yakutsk.

joshuaheard 2y ago

If they only killed a mammoth every 6 months, I wonder how they preserved the meat. That area is too far from the ocean to harvest salt. Maybe store it in the snow? What about summer? Smoking the meat would do it. They did find evidence of fire.

koliber 2y ago
Maybe they made mammoth jerky.
houseplant 2y ago
yeah smoking it or drying it by lying it in strips in the sun. if the air is dry enough it won't rot and will just turn into jerkey which lasts for ages. Many still do it to this day I also just looked this up, but apparently mammoths were still walking the earth as early as only 3000 years ago! I thought it was way farther. The idea to bring them back to northern areas of earth doesnt sound so far fetched
- kombookcha 2y ago
  It's a pretty fun party fact that by the time the last mammoths died out, the Great Pyramid was already 1500 years old :) It gives me a lot of hope for revival projects that there's relatively 'young' dna to be found. Of course the reduced range towards the end probably means there's not many of these recent sources to source it from, but still!
  - mark_undoio 2y ago
    That flashed me back to a vague memory that the film 10,000BC showed mammoths in use building the pyramids, which I thought was incredibly silly (well, it was...). But it's kind of satisfying to know that the building at least overlapped with the mammoths in real life.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    WWIV may be fought using mammoths and dinos? What a cool idea! /s

alekseiprokopev 2y ago

I’m from Yakutia and remember sharing a hospital room with a former mammoth hunter. He had many stories to tell.

WithinReason 2y ago
Was it a mental hospital, or was he hunting only bones?

farseer 2y ago

For a minute I thought this graveyard involved Stalin and one of his killing sprees.

jimnotgym 2y ago

'Interactions' is a very passive phrase for killing and dismemberment!

HocusLocus 2y ago
> 'Interactions' is a very passive phrase for killing and dismemberment! Be wary in modern theme parks. Visitor Interactions is big business in corporate-speak, and it is only so long before they decide to capitalize on this renewable food source.

givemeethekeys 2y ago

[flagged]

world2vec 2y ago

If you're interested in this subject, modern tusk hunters and science-fiction, then let me recommend the book "Tusks of Extinction" (2024) by Ray Nayler [0]. Very interesting read (his previous book "The Mountain in the Sea" (2022) is, however, much better and IMHO one of the best sci-fi books I've read in a long time). [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127284214-the-tusks-of-extinction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127284214-the-tusks-of-e...

phreeza 2y ago

> until their last dated survival 4 kyr ago. Wow I did not realize they survived that long, that's well after the invention of writing for example.

inglor_cz 2y ago
The first pharaohs and the last woolly mammoths on the Wrangel Island were contemporaries. Of course, as far as travel from Egypt to the Arctic Ocean goes, they could have lived on different planets.