[HN Gopher] Siberia's 'mammoth graveyard' reveals 800-year human...
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Siberia's 'mammoth graveyard' reveals 800-year human interactions
with mammoths
Author : wglb
Score : 131 points
Date : 2024-06-11 00:15 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| _visgean wrote:
| > Sadly, now that human-mammoth relationship has continued as
| ivory hunters have looted the site beyond further study.
|
| Radio free europe had a really good photo essay on these new
| mammoth pirates: https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-
| pirates/27939865.html
| shmageggy wrote:
| That was exellently presented. Clear, informative, compelling.
| I especially appreciated getting to the end without being
| bombarded with any ads, popups, or begging for email signups.
| Curious how I could support such media, I found
| https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-rfe-rl/ which says,
|
| > _RFE /RL, Inc. is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation
| funded by the U.S. Congress through a grant from the United
| States Agency for Global Media..._
|
| Yay taxes!
| the_af wrote:
| > _Yay taxes!_
|
| Well, the RFERL was funded through a CIA front organization,
| it was mostly an anti-communist propaganda operation. It
| definitely is/was a "state effort". So yes, taxes.
| _visgean wrote:
| you say propaganda, I say truth.
|
| > According to certain European politicians such as Petr
| Necas, RFE played a significant role in the collapse of
| communism and the development of democracy in Eastern
| Europe.[40][41][42] Unlike government-censored programs,
| RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist
| movements. Its audience increased substantially following
| the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized
| defection of Jozef Swiatlo.[43] Arch Puddington argues that
| its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland's Poznan riots
| in 1956 served as an inspiration for the Hungarian
| revolution that year.[44]
|
| > For the first two days following the Chernobyl disaster
| on April 26, 1986, the official Eastern Bloc media did not
| report any news about the disaster, nor any full account
| for another four months. According to the Hoover Institute,
| the people of the Soviet Union "became frustrated with
| inconsistent and contradictory reports", and 36% of them
| turned to Western radio to provide accurate and pertinent
| information.[58] Listenership at RFE/RL "shot up
| dramatically" as a "great many hours" of broadcast time
| were devoted to the dissemination of life-saving news and
| information following the disaster.[59] Broadcast topics
| included "precautions for exposure to radioactive fallout"
| and reporting on the plight of the Estonians who were
| tasked with providing the clean-up operations in
| Ukraine.[59]
| danoni wrote:
| > Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an American government-
| funded international media organization
|
| The purpose of RFERL is to produce news items that are covertly
| critical of the enemy. It adds up with other resources to paint
| a negative image of the enemy.
| yladiz wrote:
| Which enemy?
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Russia?
|
| The west is in a war-like situation with Russia. Portraying
| them as stupid, drunk rednecks who ravage trough the
| environment certainly fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's
| not true though.
| danoni wrote:
| There is no direct confrontation because that would be
| WWIII. Only proxy wars like the one happening now.
|
| RFERL is US-government funded, and the audience is mainly
| eastern Europe. Even PBS in the US is not funded by the
| US government.
|
| Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you
| do not fund your national public broadcaster?
| _visgean wrote:
| > Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if
| you do not fund your national public broadcaster?
|
| Because the US media market is quite saturated and
| developed (or at least was when any of this was made into
| law) compared to countries where media is actively
| supressed.
| danoni wrote:
| I don't see that.
|
| Quality news reporting is lacking. Investigative
| journalism is almost dead. The mainstream media is on a
| war footing. There have been 0 interviews with J
| Mearsheimer on mainstream US media.
| input_sh wrote:
| Don't worry, it's not _just_ eastern Europe.
|
| There's also Radio Free Asia, Current Time TV (in
| Russian), Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio
| Television Marti (targeting Cuba) and of course, Voice of
| America, all under USAGM (Agency for Global Media).
| somenameforme wrote:
| RFERL is a propaganda outlet that was established by the
| CIA as a weapon against the Soviets during the Cold War.
| [1] And in 1948, just before this all started kicking
| off, the Smith-Mundt [2] act was passed which prohibited
| the government disseminating propaganda domestically.
| That act was then repealed in 2013, because reasons.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Rad
| io_Libert...
|
| [2] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act
| snakeyjake wrote:
| > That act was then repealed in 2013, because reasons
|
| It wasn't repealed, it was amended.
|
| In 2012.
|
| To provide an Arabic/Pashto/Urdu/etc. language source of
| information for speakers of those languages within the US
| due to a lack of coverage by domestic US broadcasters.
| (not "reasons")
|
| For example: You are an Arabic-speaking individual living
| in the midwest of the US where you were resettled after
| getting refugee status. There almost no domestically-
| produced news sources in Arabic.
|
| Al-monitor exists, but they were founded the same year
| the act was amended, for the same reasons, and
| unfortunately while many of their articles are written in
| native language, many others seem to be machine-
| translated and no matter what the AI/ML hypelords think,
| that ain't it boss.
| distances wrote:
| That article is from 2016.
| TheBlight wrote:
| It could be argued that Ukraine's 2014 revolution
| occurred with the backing of the US and was the most
| immediate precursor to the present situation. I'm not
| claiming it was or wasn't just that there is a case this
| was brewing long before 2022.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| When the strongest evidence is 'the Americans handed out
| cookies to those protesting for independence' I'm not
| sure it's really an 'argument'.
| TheBlight wrote:
| To what extent do we expect to see direct evidence the
| Euromaidan protests were instigated/leveraged by
| intelligence officers and associated cutouts for
| strategic purposes? I don't know and the lack of concrete
| evidence makes me reluctant to draw any firm conclusions
| but a comment from a former intelligence analyst seems
| interesting to me:
|
| From https://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/3/who_is_provoki
| ng_the_u...:
|
| "RAY McGOVERN: Well, a couple of things. You know, it
| really depends more on who seizes control of these
| uprisings. If you look at Bahrain, you know, if you look
| at Syria--even Egypt, to an extent--these were initially
| popular uprisings. The question is: Who took them over?
| Who spurred them? Who provoked them even more for their
| own particular strategic interests? And it's very clear
| what's happened to the Ukraine. It used to be the CIA
| doing these things. I know that for a fact. OK, now it's
| the National Endowment for Democracy, a hundred million
| bucks, 62 projects in the Ukraine. So, again, you don't
| have to be a paranoid Russian to suggest that, you know,
| they're really trying to do what they--do in the Ukraine
| what they've done in the rest of Eastern Europe and
| elsewhere."
| cpursley wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
| TheBlight wrote:
| IMO, this falls short of directly implicating the USG in
| the revolution but it certainly highlights their detailed
| concern in the region and a desire for specific outcomes.
| It makes it harder to believe USG intelligence operatives
| were completely hands-off. To what extent the situation
| was being driven by them is something I can't tell/guess.
| Muromec wrote:
| The cookies were handed to the riot police, not
| protestors.
| lye wrote:
| ... which proves his point. This anti-Russian sentiment
| never really ended, it's easy to not notice it if you've
| never been on the receiving side of it. It's not just the
| news, I saw it in casual conversations all the time long
| before 2014, and even 2008. TBH I expected better from
| Americans, with their multi-cultural society and
| sensitivity trainings, but was mistaken.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| One of the two major American political parties somewhat
| regularly supports the Russian government, in an amazing
| turnaround of the history of the party since 2016, but
| part of that is due to the party just opposing on
| principle almost anything the other party supports for
| political reasons starting around 1980s, and part of it
| is due to where the titular head of the party is polling.
| The less populated rural areas of America and the very
| few swing states as well have an inordinate influence on
| the national politics to counteract your misconceptions
| about America.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Looting of national treasures is pretty typical of
| Russia.
|
| A large country, the tsar (or the government) is far
| away, local governors can be bribed ... unless you do
| something that endangers the entire country/system, you
| can get away with a lot.
| _visgean wrote:
| > covertly critical of the enemy
|
| The radio is now based in Prague, it has a long history here
| and most people were quite happy to hear some real news
| during the communism. People tuning in risked prison time
| just to hear something else. I would not say you needed to be
| overtly critical, it was enough to just bring real news.
| TomK32 wrote:
| In Nazi Germany you risked a lot more than prison for
| listening to the BBC, though most death sentences were in
| combination with some treason accusations. https://de.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Verordnung_%C3%BCber_au%C3%9Fe...
| orbital-decay wrote:
| How do you even report stuff like that without being
| "critical"? That's a legitimate issue covered in Russian
| media as well. Here's one of the multiple official reports,
| for example. https://www.archeo.ru/press-relizy/nezakonnye-
| ohotniki-za-bi...
| badpun wrote:
| When doing propaganda, subject selection is the key factor.
| If you want to do a smear campaign, you just do honest
| reporting, but only of the things about your target that
| are negative.
| btilly wrote:
| Example, NYT reporting on the tech industry. I wish I was
| making that up.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33473275
| stevenwoo wrote:
| The Russian guys just seemed desperate for a job and most
| of them lose money with a few striking it rich keeping the
| cycle going. I would blame the black market in China and
| Vietnam more, since it also causes the same sort of issue
| with wild rhino and elephant populations in Africa.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Russia and China are doing it on a much worse level and as
| the language barriers are quite high we don't see and hear of
| what they say about the West in their media. The French-
| German broadcaster ARTE has a good series called Fake News
| that lifts the curtain a bit https://www.youtube.com/playlist
| ?list=PLlQWnS27jXh8H1ej2-Sk0...
| somenameforme wrote:
| There is no curtain whatsoever in modern times. Russian
| auto-translates excellently. Here [1] is the largest
| Russian state media site. Chinese is a bit bumpier, but
| it's also fully readable. [2] There's nothing particularly
| extreme, except insomuch as nationalism has become a bad-
| word somehow, and their media does focus heavily on
| culture, history, and national identity. Granted, Russia is
| quite negative towards the US, but probably no more than
| you'd expect if roles were reversed and Russia decided to
| just join the party in one of our many misguided invasions,
| upping the ante ever higher each time a game-changer failed
| to change the game.
|
| [1] - https://tass-
| ru.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x...
|
| [2] - https://www-people-
| cn.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_s...
| zrn900 wrote:
| > Russia and China are doing it on a much worse level
|
| They arent. The two things that crippled the Eastern Bloc's
| propaganda efforts was 1) Fear of getting caught lying and
| losing credibility and therefore not lying 2) Doing
| propaganda by stating facts in dry, formal language.
|
| The US has perfected the lying, smearing emotional
| manipulation propaganda early in the Cold War and it still
| keeps doing it. There isn't one single country that does it
| like that. So, no, Russia and China arent doing it 'on a
| much worse level' - they are incompetent. The very fact
| that you have this 'perception' that its not the country
| that lied about nonexistent WMDs for almost a decade but
| 'others' who are doing 'worse propaganda' is a
| demonstration of how far worse the US propaganda is.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| There's an argument to be made that Hollywood is the best
| propaganda machine in the world at fostering putative or
| aspirational American ideals if not the reality on the
| ground. Recently the adaptation of The Sympathizer, this
| explores from the POV that the guys on the other side are
| human, too, differently from the book but similar
| territory concerning depictions of Vietnam War in
| particular.
| itishappy wrote:
| > Russia and China are doing it on a much worse level and
| as the language barriers are quite high we don't see and
| hear of what they say about the West in their media.
|
| International propaganda behind a language barrier? That
| doesn't sound right...
|
| https://sputnikglobe.com/
|
| https://www.rt.com/
|
| https://chinaplus.cri.cn/
|
| They also broadcast from local stations (in their parent
| countries) in English at high power. I bet you can find
| Radio Liberty and Voice of America as well. I discovered
| this accidentally by messing around in websdr:
|
| http://websdr.org/
| ljf wrote:
| Was too stunning and interesting not to be a post in its own
| right:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40643610
| araes wrote:
| Funding for RFE/RL aside, neat article, and whoever that was
| almost got a Half-Life death out in the woods with a crowbar.
|
| > Boozy camaraderie is quickly exhausted and the atmosphere
| turns ugly. One tusker picks up a metal bar and slams it onto a
| woodpile before turning on me. He pauses for a moment before
| swiping it above my head. As I back out of the camp, he
| collapses onto a bench, calling, "Where's the dog?!"
|
| Also, that "Mosquitoes are a near constant plague." image is
| one of the most disgusting things I think I've seen recently.
| Pass out drunk and wake up to feet covered with bugs in the
| morning.
| surfingdino wrote:
| Some things in life are just impossible to survive without a
| crate of vodka, it seems.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| 'Piracy' in this region began in the early 1700s - a quarter-
| millenium ago. 'Twas easier then though.
|
| Here's another long, well-illustrated, little-known tale of
| exploration of the islands off N. Siberia. Fossil tusks were
| often found in huge quantities ... some islands covered in them.
|
| https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/alaskan-muck-ivor...
|
| "One of the most active and successful of the fur-hunters of that
| time was named Liakoff, and he from time to time obtained great
| quantities not only of valuable furs, but also of fossil ivory
| from the tusks and teeth of the mammoths, which he himself
| collected or received from the native Siberians.... Every year
| great quantities of ivorv were taken from the islands and sold in
| the markets at Yakutsk.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| If they only killed a mammoth every 6 months, I wonder how they
| preserved the meat. That area is too far from the ocean to
| harvest salt. Maybe store it in the snow? What about summer?
| Smoking the meat would do it. They did find evidence of fire.
| koliber wrote:
| Maybe they made mammoth jerky.
| houseplant wrote:
| yeah smoking it or drying it by lying it in strips in the sun.
| if the air is dry enough it won't rot and will just turn into
| jerkey which lasts for ages. Many still do it to this day
|
| I also just looked this up, but apparently mammoths were still
| walking the earth as early as only 3000 years ago! I thought it
| was way farther. The idea to bring them back to northern areas
| of earth doesnt sound so far fetched
| kombookcha wrote:
| It's a pretty fun party fact that by the time the last
| mammoths died out, the Great Pyramid was already 1500 years
| old :)
|
| It gives me a lot of hope for revival projects that there's
| relatively 'young' dna to be found. Of course the reduced
| range towards the end probably means there's not many of
| these recent sources to source it from, but still!
| mark_undoio wrote:
| That flashed me back to a vague memory that the film
| 10,000BC showed mammoths in use building the pyramids,
| which I thought was incredibly silly (well, it was...). But
| it's kind of satisfying to know that the building at least
| overlapped with the mammoths in real life.
| surfingdino wrote:
| WWIV may be fought using mammoths and dinos? What a cool
| idea! /s
| WithinReason wrote:
| You hunt it in the autumn and preserver it in the cold.
|
| From spring you can forage and hunt small prey all summer.
| tokai wrote:
| Apparently eating rotten meat could have been very common.
|
| https://paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PA20170044.pdf
| surfingdino wrote:
| I think vodka made it possible to survive imperfections in meat
| preservation processes.
| alekseiprokopev wrote:
| I'm from Yakutia and remember sharing a hospital room with a
| former mammoth hunter. He had many stories to tell.
| WithinReason wrote:
| Was it a mental hospital, or was he hunting only bones?
| farseer wrote:
| For a minute I thought this graveyard involved Stalin and one of
| his killing sprees.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| 'Interactions' is a very passive phrase for killing and
| dismemberment!
| world2vec wrote:
| If you're interested in this subject, modern tusk hunters and
| science-fiction, then let me recommend the book "Tusks of
| Extinction" (2024) by Ray Nayler [0].
|
| Very interesting read (his previous book "The Mountain in the
| Sea" (2022) is, however, much better and IMHO one of the best
| sci-fi books I've read in a long time).
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127284214-the-tusks-
| of-e...
| phreeza wrote:
| > until their last dated survival 4 kyr ago.
|
| Wow I did not realize they survived that long, that's well after
| the invention of writing for example.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The first pharaohs and the last woolly mammoths on the Wrangel
| Island were contemporaries.
|
| Of course, as far as travel from Egypt to the Arctic Ocean
| goes, they could have lived on different planets.
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