Defrosting the past
Ancient human and animal remains are melting out of glaciers, a bounty of a warming world
Other findings from melting ice in the neighboring Yukon region could explain what that long-ago person was doing in the mountains in the first place. "Before this there was no archaeological record of people living here," says Greg Hare, a Yukon government archaeologist. "Now we see that this area was very much part of people's seasonal activities."
Like Ward's discovery, the search began by chance, when Kristin Benedek caught a whiff of what smelled like a barnyard as she and her husband, Gerry Kuzyk, hunted sheep at 6,000 feet in the mountains of the south Yukon. They followed the scent to a melting patch of ice covered in caribou dung. "It was really odd, because I knew there hadn't been caribou in the area for at least 100 years," recalls Kuzyk, then a wildlife biologist with the Yukon government.
Caribou cake. Returning a week later, he found "what looked like a pencil with string wrapped around it." It turned out to be a 4,300-year-old atlatl, or spear thrower. Further investigation of the ice patch--and scores of others around the region--revealed icy layer cakes filled with caribou remains and human detritus chronicling 7,800 years of changing hunting practices.
Scientists now believe ancient caribou and other animals flocked to the ice each summer to cool down and escape swarming mosquitoes and flies. Hunters followed the game. They returned for centuries and discarded some equipment in the ice. "We've got people hunting with throwing darts up until 1,200 years ago," says Hare, who now oversees the research project. "Then we see the first appearance of the bow and arrow about 1,300 years ago. And by 1,200 years ago, there's no more throwing darts."
Now scientists are trying to make the search less a matter of luck. They are developing sophisticated computer models that combine data on where glaciers are melting fastest and where humans and animals are known to have migrated to pinpoint the best places to search in Alaska's Wrangell and St. Elias mountain ranges--the United States' most glaciated terrain--and in the Andes. Johan Reinhard thinks the fast-thawing European Alps could also deliver more findings, perhaps as exquisite as the Ice Man. "Global warming is providing us high-altitude archaeologists with some fantastic opportunities right now. We're probably about the only ones happy about it."
Treasure map
In Alaska's Wrangell and St. Elias mountains, archaeologists guided by knowledge of glacial melting and human and animal movements found remains at many sites around the fringe of the ice. [Map is not available.] [Labels] Alaska Area of detail Field sites Source: James Dixon and William Manley of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine
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