It is sensational. Scientists defined when people had populated the territory of modern Yamal

People populated the territory of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug 14 thousand years ago. For the first time findings that certainly proved dynamic activity of the Paleolithic man and, probably, more ancient people on this area were the results of two field seasons in 2018-2019. The most ancient dates obtained from radiocarbon analysis are referred to paleontological objects with traces from tools of ancient hunters, who had hunted large animals of the mammoth complex.

13 artifacts, which differ in various degrees of preservation, were found on the area from the village of Kazym-Mys to the village of Pitlyar: Lithic core tools, pebble tools and fragments. Numerous remains of mammoth fauna were found along with the stone items: woolly mammoth, reindeer, woolly rhinoceros, horse, bison, musk ox and elk.

According to the information given to the news agency “Sever-Press” in the service for state protection of objects of cultural heritage in the region, 50 years ago no one assumed that it was possible to find traces of human activity of the Paleolithic era on the territory of modern Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. And only in recent decades the time of the initial populating of the north of Western Siberia has begun becoming more ancient. But the territory of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug remained “sterile” in this respect, except for the accidental finding of stone artifacts in the Voykar River valley, presumably of the Paleolithic age, discovered in 1994 by the archaeological expedition of Yamal led by Natalia Fyodorova and Yevgeniy Kochegov.

In 2018 with a grant from the Russian Science Foundation the Institute of archaeology and ethnography of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences started purposeful search for sites of the Stone Age and possible ways for the Paleolithic man to populate the territory of modern Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. At the moment two field seasons were held, and it is planned to continue the work.

Now the scientists are working to prove their theory that the found artifacts indicate human activity here 45 thousand years ago and much older. Search in the upcoming season will be aimed at finding of Paleolithic sites in clear stratigraphical occurrence, what will allow making the date of populating of the region considerably more ancient.