Unfrozen Stone Age caribou poop

Biologist Gerry Kuzyk was hiking with his wife in the remote reaches of the Yukon when he caught the putrid scent of caribou dung wafting through the chill air.

Then he saw it -- the biggest pile of animal droppings he had ever seen, 8 feet high and stretching over a half-mile of mountainside.

Kuzyk, a researcher with the Yukon Department of Renewable Resources, knew there weren't enough caribou in the entire territory to create such an epic mound. Odder yet, there hadn't been caribou in the area for nearly a century.

"It was like being in the `Twilight Zone,' " said Rick Farnell, a colleague who helped investigate the find. "You could see them from a distance -- big, black bands of feces. I'm talking tons of it."

The mystery was solved by lab analysis: The dung, the product of innumerable migrating caribou herds, had been frozen for thousands of years and only recently exposed by melting ice.

Along with the dung, the scientists soon discovered an arsenal of Stone Age darts, arrows and spears.

The article goes on to discuss the trove of ancient items that have turned up in recent years thanks to glacial melting.

UPDATE: Here's more courtesy of NPR (including photos):

. . . the unfrozen life of these artifacts is short. James Dixon, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado, says the objects decay rapidly when exposed to the air. To locate emerging artifacts quickly, Dixon and a colleague developed a digital map covering a portion of Alaska. A computer program matches places where glaciers are melting with likely routes taken by early Americans. The map gives Dixon and his team a good idea of where to look. "We're finding arrows with complete shafts with the arrows still attached, even pouches, nets and hats and trail food," he says.

Very clever -- I wonder if similar mapping is under way anywhere else.

Posted by David on January 17, 2003 1:54 PM