Free Republic

The 13,000-year-old partial tusk of an adult mammoth found in western Siberia has four images of two-humped camels engraved on it. The artifact, which measures about 70 cm (27.6 inches) in length and 10 cm (3.9 inches) in diameter, is a frontal fragment of a 1.5-m- (59-inch-) long tusk from a 35 to 40-year-old male mammoth... The researchers radiocarbon-dated the artifact to about 13,000 years ago and spotted several incisions on it... "All four animals (labeled as #1, 2, 3 and 4 in the image above) were executed in the same style, using similar techniques and tools... The main stylistic...

From 60 Minutes Australia- Oymyakon, visiting the coldest town in the world. (14 minutes)

The perfectly preserved remains of an Ice Age cave bear have been discovered in the Russian Arctic -- the first example of the species ever to be found with soft tissues intact. The astonishing find was made by reindeer herders on the Lyakhovsky Islands, which are part of the New Siberian islands archipelago in Russia's Far North. The bear could be as much as 39,500 years old. Prior to this, only the bones of cave bears had been unearthed, but this specimen even had its nose intact, according to a team of scientists from the North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) in...

A new gigantic 50-meter deep ‘crater’ opened up in the Yamal peninsula in Russia. The new Yamal pit was spotted by chance by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route for an unrelated event in July 2020. The gigantic hole is the latest to be discovered since the phenomenon was first registered in 2014 in northern Siberia. A group of scientists then made an expedition to examine the large cylindrical crater which has a depth of about 50 meters. Scientists who examined the site said blocks of soil and ice were flung “hundreds of metres” from the epicentre with “colossal...

The two researchers investigated artefacts from one of the most important Neanderthal sites in Central Europe, the Sesselfelsgrotte cave in Lower Bavaria... 'The technical repertoire used to create Keilmesser is not only direct proof of the advanced planning skills of our extinct relatives, but also a strategical reaction to the restrictions imposed upon them by adverse natural conditions,' says Uthmeier, FAU professor for Early Prehistory and Archaeology of Prehistoric Hunters and Gatherers. What Uthmeier refers to as 'adverse natural conditions' are climate changes after the end of the last interglacial more than 100,000 years ago. Particularly severe cold phases during...

'We have extracted DNA from a 9,500-year-old dog from the Siberian island of Zhokhov, which the dog is named after. Based on that DNA we have sequenced the oldest complete dog genome to date, and the results show an extremely early diversification of dogs into types of sledge dogs', says one of the two first authors of the study, PhD student Mikkel Sinding, the Globe Institute. Until now, it has been the common belief that the 9,500-year-old Siberian dog, Zhokhov, was a kind of ancient dog - one of the earliest domesticated dogs and a version of the common origin...

As our planet's permafrosts continue to melt in record-breaking heat, we can expect to find astonishing things from the ancient past. Like this huge wolf head, preserved since the last ice age and unearthed in incredible condition in Siberia in 2018, an estimated 40,000 years since being entombed in frozen wilderness. The giant head, discovered by a local man in 2018 along the shores of the Tirekhtyakh River in the Russian Republic of Sakha (aka Yakutia), measures a whole 40 centimetres in length (about 16 inches), making it unlike any existing wolf specimen scientists have studied from so long ago....

“Mutant ticks are attacking - this is not a tabloid headline but a fact,” reported Zvezda, the Russian defence ministry’s newspaper. The mutant ticks have been found in several regions of Siberia. They combine the “worst qualities” of two common types of Russian tick - Ixodes persulcatus, the taiga tick, and the “malicious” Pavlovsky or Far Eastern tick. They attack people in both long and short grass. A “large number inter-species hybrids” which produce “fertile offspring” have invaded Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions, said Dr Nina Tikhunova, of the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, Novosibirsk. This mutant “is capable...

In less than nine minutes, President Trump delivered remarks at the White House on Friday signaling his administration has ditched almost five decades of the American policy of engagement with China. It’s about time. China has been challenging the United States across the board, and Trump – with his comprehensive comments Friday – signaled the United States would defend itself across the board. Trump announced a series of actions, including: 1. Terminating America’s relationship with the World Health Organization. Trump said the WHO is biased in favor of China and has failed to approve reforms arising out of its dealing...

On the morning of 30 June 1908, a large explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia. That event is known as the Tunguska event that leveled trees across more than 2,000 square kilometers. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found. Due to the remoteness of the site and the limited instrumentation available at the time of the event, modern scientific interpretations of its cause and magnitude have relied chiefly on damage assessments, and geological studies conducted many years after the fact. The most likely cause...

Explanation: Yes, but can your meteor do this? The most powerful natural explosion in recent Earth history occurred on 1908 June 30 when a meteor exploded above the Tunguska River in Siberia, Russia. Detonating with an estimated power 1,000 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima, the Tunguska event leveled trees over 40 kilometers away and shook the ground in a tremendous earthquake. Eyewitness reports are astounding. The above picture was taken by a Russian expedition to the Tunguska site almost 20 years after the event, finding trees littering the ground like toothpicks. Estimates of the meteor's size...

A new study by Russian and French researchers found new petroglyphs which helped the answer this conundrum. For example, at Baga-Oygur II was found the image of a long-gone woolly rhino. Most of the image is lost due to a rock slicing, but the animal is quite recognisable with an elongated, squat torso, short powerful legs, a characteristic tail, and an elongated muzzle with exaggeratedly enlarged two horns. This was useful because these animals - like mammoths - became extinct around 15,000 years ago in this region, making the drawings the work of Palaeolithic artists... The scientists also concluded that...

A fire has engulfed large parts of a prison in Russia's Siberia region following a riot by inmates who accused guards of mistreating them. The area around the high-security Penal Colony No 15 in Angarsk has been sealed off and security forces deployed. There are reports of casualties but their number is unclear. Russia's penal service said inmates had "attacked a guard" who had to be taken to hospital. Officials said the unrest was under control and investigators had opened an investigation.

...the Neanderthals who lived in Chagyrskaya Cave in southern Siberia around 54,000 years ago. Their distinctive stone tools are dead ringers for those found thousands of kilometres away in eastern and central Europe. The intercontinental journey made by these intrepid Neanderthals is equivalent to walking from Sydney to Perth, or from New York to Los Angeles, and is a rare example of long-distance migration by Palaeolithic people... Neanderthals are now believed to have created 176,000 year-old enigmatic structures made from broken stalactites in a cave in France, and cave art in Spain that dates back more than 65,000 years. They...

Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A trio of escaped pigs wandered into a supermarket in Russia and were caught on camera raiding the liquor aisle. A video taken at the store in Tyumen, Siberia, shows the three pigs perusing the liquor aisle and knocking over bottles of cognac, which they then proceeded to lap up off the floor. Witnesses said the three pigs were found to have escaped from a nearby home. The pigs were returned to their owner unharmed. VIDEO AT LINK................

When some people hear “mammoth,” money comes to mind. Local tour companies offer trips to the mammoth graveyards across the region’s Arctic frontier. Prospectors for mammoth parts—especially the tusks, known as ice ivory—have raced to collect remains. Around 100 tons of mammoth tusks are legally mined in Yakutia each year, while illegal mining is estimated at twice that much, according to a report by TASS “If ever a mammoth surfaces somewhere in the world, it will actually have Yakut roots,” said Mr. Fyodorov, proudly underscoring that his republic is mammoth central, the hereditary home of so many of these beasts....

As weather warms, craters grow, scientists sayA gaping—and growing—hole in the middle of a Siberian forest isn't the gateway to the underworld, as some frightened locals believe. It may be worse. The Batagaika crater, the biggest megaslump on Earth, may be be a "harbinger" of our warming planet, as Motherboard puts it. The crater, located in one of the planet's coldest places, appeared about 25 years ago, and geologist Julian Murton of the University of Sussex tells the Independent that it was likely born after locals cut down a swath of forest that sat above the permafrost. "Cutting down of...

An explosion occurred at the Vector State Virology Research Center near Novosibirsk . This research center has one of the most comprehensive collections of dangerous viruses in the world. According to Rospotrebnadzor, on the fifth floor of a six-story laboratory building, a gas bottle exploded during repair work, after which a fire broke out on an area of 30 square meters. The fire is eliminated. One worker suffered. With burns of the second and third degree, he was taken to the hospital. In Rospotrebnadzor emphasized that in the room where the explosion occurred, there were no biohazardous substances. At the...

The city of Novosibirsk in Siberia has unveiled a memorial plaque Friday honoring Kim Jong Il, the father and predecessor of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Kim, who led the secretive state until his death in 2011, visited the Russian city on Aug. 11, 2001, after talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. A youth talent foundation marked Kim’s visit with the plaque ahead of Novosibirsk conservatory students’ trip to North Korea on Friday. Kim’s visit to Novosibirsk “was an unconventional event in the life of the city,” said Novosibirsk Mayor Anatoly Lokot. “We supported the initiative to install...

Calico: A 200,000-year old site in the Americas? New World archaeological sites inferred to be even slightly older than the 11.5 ka Clovis complexes have been controversial; so claims for a 200 ka site in North America have heretofore been treated with substantial disdain. But the acceptance of Monte Verde and Diring may soon change that. The classic "ancient site" in the New World is "Calico," located in the Central Mojave Desert of California (Shlemon and Budinger, 1990). Two issues have dogged acceptance of Calico by mainstream archaeologists: (1) the authenticity of the artifacts; are they truly the product of ...