Arctic inhabited 30,000 years ago

Russian archeologists have found evidence that people lived in Arctic Siberia 16,000 years earlier than previously thought.

New discoveries of ancient artifacts in the area around the Yana River, 500 kilometres above the Arctic Circle, show lands high above the Arctic Circle were populated during the last ice age.

The findings support the theory that North America was populated much earlier than previously thought. The artifacts found include spear “foreshafts” and stone tools, which seems to show that humans were hunting big game animals in the region about 30,000 years ago.

“Although a direct connection remains tenuous, the Yana … site indicates that humans extended deep into the Arctic during colder [ice age] times,” the authors wrote in the newest edition of the journal Science.