Woolly mammoth remains resurfacing in Siberia

[n2doc]

The bones and tusks of the ancient creatures are becoming more prevalent as permafrost thaws. Now entire villages are surviving on the trade in mammoth bones.



By Megan K. Stack
March 2, 2010


Reporting from Moscow - The beasts had long lain extinct and forgotten, embedded deep in the frozen turf, bodies swaddled in Earth's layers for thousands of years before Christ.

Now, the Russian permafrost is offering up the bones and tusks of the woolly mammoths that once lumbered over the tundra. They are shaped into picture frames, chess sets, pendants. They are gathered and piled, carved and whittled, bought and sold on the Internet.

The once-obscure scientists who specialize in the wastelands of Siberia have opened lucrative sidelines as bone hunters, spending the summer months trawling the northern river banks and working networks of locals to gather stockpiles of bones. They speak of their work proudly, and a little mystically.

"You need to have luck to find bones," said Fyodor Romanenko, a geologist at Moscow State University. "I don't look for bones. I find them. They find me.

"Every find gives you a huge joy," he said. "It's a gift from nature, from the Arctic, from fate."

more

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-woolly-mammoth2-2010mar02,0,2703266.story

[Horse with no Name]

1. The "gift" of climate change

Ain't it grand!:eyes:

[Sal Minella]

2. Absolutely.

And if it weren't for the accompanying methane coming up with the bones, I'd be just thrilled to pieces for everybody.

[Javaman]

3. Personally, I welcome our new Zombie Mammoth overlords. nt

[leftstreet]

4. You always beat everybody to it!

:hi:

[Javaman]

5. Nice graphic!

Cheers! :)

[mindwalker_i]

6. When I first read the title

I thought Palin had forgotten to shave.

[troubledamerican]

7. Another metaphor, as the circle of closure on an extinct epoch returns to close.