Up in Canada’s Mackenzie Mountains, melting ice has revealed ancient weapons thousands of years old, including 2,400 year old spear throwing tools, thousand year old squirrel traps, and bows and arrows dating back 480 years.

Tom Andrews, an archaeologist with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Center in Yellowknife, describes researchers’ delight in the discovery.

“We’re just like children opening Christmas presents,” said Andrews, the lead researcher of the International Polar Year Ice Patch Study. “I kind of pinch myself.”

The discoveries are giving researchers a glimpse into hunting techniques that were utilized thousands of years ago. Because the specimens are so perfectly preserved, the archeologists are given a complete picture of how the tools were used. As Andrews explains,

“We are talking of complete examples of ancient technology, including arrows with wooden shafts, feathers and sinew hafting. These artifacts are giving us an entirely new appreciation of how ancient hunting tools were made and used,”

Until recently, these artifacts were locked in the ice created by snow patches that persisted year-round. Caribou flocked to these patches in summer to escape heat and bugs, making them a prime target for hunters.

Speaking of ancient hunters: Thomas poses with the harpoon he found in 2009.

2 Comments »

All this week, VBC will be posting an online documentary about Heimo Korth, one of the last remaining residents of America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Established in 1980 by then-president Jimmy Carter, the Refuge protects 19 million acres of Arctic wilderness from developers, hunters, and oil interests. The family followed by the documentary are the last white settlers to live on the land year round, one of six families that were grandfathered in when the park was formed.

The documentary explores the day-to-day realities of their lives, showcasing the skills and resilience needed to survive at the edge of the habitable world.

Parts One and Two are already online, with the rest posting throughout the week.

via Online documentary about one of the last people living in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Boing Boing.

No Comments »

A ball of frozen hair discovered in the permafrost near Qeqertasussuk, Greenland has yielded enough DNA for scientists to sequence the genome from an ancient human.

The man, whom scientists have dubbed “Inuk,” lived 4,000 years ago, was relatively young when he died, had dark eyes, dark skin, “shovel shaped” teeth, and would have been prone to balding later in life. He was a member of the Saqqaq culture, the earliest known to inhabit Greenland. Further tests reveal that his diet consisted mostly of seals, seabirds, and other marine foods.

Comparisons between Inuk’s DNA with that of existing native reveals that he is most closely related to the Nganasans, Koryaks and Chukchis of Eastern Siberia, rather than the native population of Greenland today. This suggests that his people migrated across the Bering Straight and moved east toward Greenland, but did not settle there, or died out.

Read more:

National Geographic: Face of Ancient Human Drawn from Hair’s DNA

Nature: The Ancient Human Genome

The Guardian: Genome from ancient human hair conjures up brown-eyed man, Inuk

No Comments »

The Antarctic Sun has a great article up about the first group of women to do research, live, and work in Antarctica, back in 1969.

Rear Adm. D.F. Welch, the commander of the naval forces in Antarctica, escorted the six women to the Pole. His aide, then-Lt. Jon Clarke, helped orchestrate the moment when all six women would step off the cargo ramp at the back of the plane.

Who would be the first woman to step on the Ice?

“The admiral decided [King] Solomon-like that the solution to that problem was that all [six] of them could jump off the ramp at the same time and they could all claim to be the first at the Pole. I was the guy in charge of stage managing that event,” says Clarke, who left active service in 1970 to go to law school. He has a law office outside of Denver.

Photographers filmed and shot every moment, from the first steps on the polar plateau to the group picture at the geographic pole that marks 90 degrees south.

Terrell admits the event was overly staged, but also says the visit probably held more meaning for Jones, who was older than the rest of the team and had faced gender discrimination for years. It also served as an example that women could be more than nurses or teachers, as she’d been told in grade school.

“That’s what the teachers were telling the kids: Their opportunities were extremely limited,” Terrell says. “To me, [the visit to South Pole] was in part to say, ‘The only bounds you have are the ones you put on yourself.’”

The Antarctic Sun: News about Antarctica – Breaking the Ice page 1.

No Comments »

"I thought you packed it!" Shackleton and Worsley. Image via the Scott Polar Research Institute.

When Shackleton ran short on supplies during his expedition to the South Pole, which ultimately resulted in he and his team missing the pole by a scant 100 miles (though one team member did reach the magnetic pole), he lost the title of “first to the pole” to explorer Roald Amusndsen.

But the true tragedy of Shackleton’s aborted expedition was never realized until three years ago, when it was discovered that, buried beneath a hut at Cape Royds built used by the expedition lay two crates of scotch.

Of the whiskey, encased in ice below the hut, Al Fastier of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage trust, states, “I personally think they must have been left there by mistake, because it’s hard to believe two crates would have been left under the hut without drinking them,”

Now the Trust is going to use special ice cutting equipment to remove the whiskey. But don’t get your barware ready just yet — after undergoing historic preservation in New Zealand, the crates and bottles will be returned to the hut, which researchers are attempting to restore to the condition in which Shackleton left it. Though you may get your chance to sample the recipe, from thebrewer McKinlay and co.:

Distillers Whyte and Mackay, which owns the McKinlay brand, are keen to get hold of a bottle, or at least a sample of the now-extinct blend.

The company’s master blender Richard Paterson said: “We might even get enough to be able to take a stab at recreating it.”

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Shackletons whisky to be dug up.

No Comments »

Freeze Frame » Bothy at Ryvingen in his polar gear seldom needed and despised by him.

Sometimes, in the course of my research, I stumble across an image I just have to share. This is one of those times.

The Scott Polar Research Institute’s Freeze Frame project provides access to digital reproductions of images from both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions from the nineteenth century through to the present day. There are some great images from polar history, including everyday shots of explorers (and their dogs) at home at either pole.

Related Content: Graham Dickson in Face to Face: Polar Portraits

No Comments »

A researcher holds a bison skull unearthed in the Arctic. Image via Astrobiology Magazine

New research indicates that, during the Pleiocene and Pleistocene eras, when most of the northern hemisphere was covered with ice, a swath of the far north remained relatvely ice-free, and was home to large grazing mammals such as mammoth, bison and Yukon horses.

This region, called Beringia, includes portions Alaska, Siberia, and the Canadian Yukon. As one of the few areas of the northern hemisphere that remained glacier-free, Beringia’s steppes played a crucial role in human and animal migration, as well as a refuge for plants and animals threatened by glaciation.

This sort of window into the Earth’s past gives scientists a better understanding of how climate change might affect life on the planet in the future. Over at Astrobiology Magazine, Aaron Gronstal notes,

Studying ancient climate conditions on Earth – and the ways in which life dealt with climate change – can help astrobiologists understand how current climate trends will affect the planet’s biosphere in the future. Environmental refuges like Beringia could have played an important role in helping life survive and evolve on our planet, even when conditions at the Earth’s surface were very inhospitable.

Life’s Ancient Island in the Ice. Via iO9.com

No Comments »

For Sophie Warny, an assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Louisiana State University, a study of samples from the Antarctic Geologic Drilling Program (or or ANDRILL AND-2A) yielded unexpected results.

“First I thought it was a mistake, that it was a sample from another location, not Antarctica, because of the unusual abundance in microscopic fossil cysts of marine algae called dinoflagellates. But it turned out not to be a mistake, it was just an amazingly rich layer,” said Warny. “I immediately contacted my U.S. colleague, Rosemary Askin, our New Zealand colleagues, Michael Hannah and Ian Raine, and our German colleague, Barbara Mohr, to let them know about this unique sample as each of our countries had received a third of the ANDRILL samples.”

Some colleagues had noted an increase in pollen grains of woody plants in the sample immediately above, but none of the other samples had such a unique abundance in algae, which at first gave Warny some doubts about potential contamination.
“But the two scientists in charge of the drilling, David Harwood of University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and Fabio Florindo of Italy, were equally excited about the discovery,” said Warny. “They had noticed that this thin layer had a unique consistency that had been characterized by their team as a diatomite, which is a layer extremely rich in fossils of another algae called diatoms.”

All research parties involved met at the Antarctic Research Facility at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Together, they sampled the zone of interest in great detail and processed the new samples in various labs. One month later, the unusual abundance in microfossils was confirmed

This abundance of microfossils indicates that life in the Antarctic was, 15.7 million years ago, remarkably warmer than it is today, and that that warm period lasted a few thousand years.

via LSU News

.

No Comments »

Inside a brick building in downtown Montreal, Nunavik’s Avataq Cultural Institute is working to preserve the culture of Quebec’s far north.

The Avataq Cultural Institute’s new Montreal facility features climate-controlled storage, an indoor parking garage (so that artifacts in transit are shielded from the sun), and on-site security, all working to preserve Nunavik’s cultural heritage.

A polar bear sculpture by Kangiqsualujjuaq artist Willie George Etok

And, while it may seem odd to keep these precious bits of the Nunavik’s past in Montreal, a secure, climate-controlled facility like this one would be too expensive to build and maintain in the North, Avataq curator Louis Gagnon said.

But Avataq’s intent isn’t to bring materials down from the North unless they need special conservation, he said. Avataq simply wants to preserve its existing collection in a safe place.

From there, items can travel to institutions for exhibition, researchers can come in to consult materials, and — above all — Avataq’s collection will remain in good condition for many generations, he said.

“We don’t want to repatriate more items to the South— just the opposite,” said Gagnon, who hopes Avataq’s collection may some day be displayed in museum exhibitions in Nunavik , perhaps at the multi-purpose museum facility that people in Puvirnituq want to build.

Avataq’s art collection now contains about 1,400 works of art and other cultural objects, handed back to Avataq from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in the 1980s and then put into storage.

via NunatsiaqOnline 2009-09-22.

Most items in the collection have been photographed and can be viewed online at the museum’s website, with 360-degree views of many 3-dimensional artifacts.

No Comments »

I was poking around over on Flickr when I ran across a great set of vintage images of the north from ookami_dou.

Makkovik / Dog Sled (ca. 1900), by ookami_dou

One of the things I love about this and the other images in the set is how little has changed. These dogs and the komatik behind them could have been snapped on an expedition last year. Or, say, 2006.

Arctic Kingdom Expedition to Qaanaaq, Greenland April 2006.

Check out the expressions on the dog’s faces — particularly the dog at the bottom left of the top image, and the dog to the far right in the photo on the bottom. Identical stares, across the centuries.

No Comments »