Feeding 9 Billion: Innovations in Agricultural Modeling
It was not that cold in subarctic areas of Russia during the epoch of the latest glaciation. This has been proved by the remains of animals found there – not only remains of such frost-resisting animals as mammoths and reindeers, but also those of horses.
During the latest ice age, i.e. 25-15,000 years ago, it was not that cold in the subarctic part of the trans-Ural region as it had been considered earlier. The territory was not covered by glacial wilderness, but by dry and low-snowy steppe. In these conditions, large herbivorous animals, such as mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses (Coelodonta), reindeers, musk-oxen and even ordinary horses felt pretty well. Glaciation took place much earlier in these area – more than 40,000 years ago.
Such conclusion has been made by the researchers of St.-Petersburg State University, after they investigated remains of plants and bones of large animals found on the banks of the Ob River in the area of polar circle. Bones and teeth of the mammoth, musk-ox and horse, pieses of wood, twigs of bushes, peat and silt were exposed to radiocarbon analysis. Almost all bones turned out to be younger than 40,000 years, while glacial sediment is evidently more ancient.
These results disagree with the official point of view on the relatively recent (20-18,000 years ago) glaciation in this region, but they coincide with the researchers of other scientists who assert that 20,000 years ago the trans-Ural region was not covered by glacier.
