Taphonomic phenomenon of ancient hair from Glacial Beringia: perspectives for palaeoecological reconstructions |
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| Authors: | Irina V Kirillova Johannes van der Plicht Stanislav V Gubin Oksana G Zanina Olga F Chernova Elena G Lapteva Svetlana S Trofimova Eugeny V Zinovyev Anton A Zharov Elena O Fadeeva Thijs Van Kolfschoten Fedor K Shidlovskiy Alexey A Kotov |
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| Institution: | 1. National Alliance of Shidlovskiy ‘Ice Age’, Ice Age Museum, Moscow, Russia;2. Center for Isotope Research, Groningen University, Groningen, the Netherlands;3. Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands;4. Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, Pushchino, Russia;5. A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia;6. Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia |
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| Abstract: | An accumulation of mammoth hair, discovered in the Bol'shaya Chukochya River valley (northeast Yakutia, Russia), was found to contain remains of terrestrial and aquatic organisms, including plants, insects, crustaceans, birds and mammals. Radiocarbon dating indicated that this post‐mortem taphocoenosis represented multiple time periods. The mammoth hair was dated to older than 45 ka BP, the plants were dated to 12 750±50 a BP (which corresponds to a shift in the environmental conditions and landscapes during the formation of thermokarst in northeastern Russia) and the bird feathers were dated to 4115±40 a BP. A scenario of the formation of this fossil assemblage is proposed, covering the MIS 3‐1 time range. The hair also yielded various Arctic branchiopod crustaceans, which inhabit shallow temporary water bodies and therefore are important for reconstruction of palaeoenvironments. The cladoceran subgenus Daphnia (Ctenodaphnia), currently absent from the Asian part of Beringia, is reported from this region for the first time. The study demonstrates that the discovered permafrost‐preserved hair is a unique repository of Ice Age organisms. |
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