Molecular Info®

Molecular Info® Copy Right © 2001 Institute of Molecular Development LLC

Human presence in the European Arctic nearly 40,000 years ago PAVEL PAVLOV, JOHN INGE SVENDSEN AND SVEIN INDRELID The Nature , September 2001, 413: 64-67. Traces of human occupation nearly 40,000 years old at Mamontovaya Kurya, a Palaeolithic site situated in the European part of the Russian Arctic was discovered. At this site stone artefacts, animal bones and a mammoth tusk with human-made marks from strata covered by thick Quaternary deposits were found. This is the oldest documented evidence for human presence at this high latitude; it implies that either the Neanderthals expanded much further north than previously thought or that modern humans were present in the Arctic only a few thousand years after their first appearance in Europe.