As the permafrost melts in Siberia, the rush is on to exploit ivory from ancient giants trapped in the ice for thousands of years.
Kim Akerman plucks a small, creamy hand-carved figurine from a handmade box resting on his kitchen table.Although carved recently, the piece of ivory with its striking amber eyes has the feel of something ancient.
But Kim and his colleague could not turn down the opportunity to own ancient ivory, so they pooled their money and purchased it. They cut off a small, more manageable piece for the museum, and kept the rest for their art.Kim is unsure of the mammoth ivory's provenance, but suspects the seller may have picked up the tusk on a business trip to Siberia.
Some tusks are sold in Russia, but most are exported around the world with major markets in China, Vietnam, and the United States. Mining parties will set up camp in mammoth-rich areas on the Arctic coast and rivers and travel in detachments to mine sites."[Miners] don't just take random people," she says.
From the water blasting and melting, Ice Age creatures appear. Skulls and tusks abound, but these miners also unearth more grizzly remains: occasionally mummified animals emerge with flesh, blood, and hair preserved. However, it's often not the miners who reap the biggest rewards, but middlemen who export the tusks, Ms Bending says."Today, the extraction of mammoth tusk is becoming an acute issue, as it affects the spheres of the shadow economy, land relations and the bowels of the Earth," Ms Aleksandra says.Miners and the environment may be more protected if mammoth mining were included in Russia's official list of Indigenous crafts or trades, such as hunting and fishing, she suggests.
The fates of mammoths and humans have been intertwined in Yakutia since before the mammoth went extinct in the region about 10,000 years ago."People stood up against them and harvested them and their remains," he muses.And mammoth artefacts are common in the archaeological record, Ms Aleksandra says.Evidence of tusks being mined stretches back to the Mesolithic .
When Professor Protopopov gets word of a significant find from miners, he, or his colleagues, will travel to the site by plane, all-terrain vehicle or — when funds allow — helicopter."All large finds sooner or later get to us. But often small finds like animal skulls are often sold. This is sad," he says.
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