He displays his other finds: a mammoth's giant thigh bones, the horns of a woolly rhino, the jaws of an ancient horse and a cave lion's skull. We can only imagine how he must have roared," said Davydov, tenderly rubbing a black tooth the size of a large shoe. The mammoth suffered from a terrible toothache. He keeps them to study the effects of climate change, but also because they fascinate him. "Their economies are growing, they have cash and are starting to develop their museums."īack in Chersky, Sergei Davydov, a 52-year-old scientist, does not sell the bones he collects. "Developing nations are now displaying huge interest in mammoths," says Svalov. Now promising new markets are opening up in emerging economies like China too. The bones make their way into museums in places like the United States and South Korea. Svalov, who is the chief executive of National Alliance, says a well-preserved tusk can sell to private collectors for up to £10,000, while a reconstructed mammoth skeleton can fetch between £75,000 and £125,000. The company runs the museum, and holds government licences allowing it to excavate and export prehistoric relics. The ring is the symbol of the National Alliance, a close-knit business run by entrepreneur Fyodor Shidlovsky. Museum official Alexander Svalov has on one of his fingers a ring identical to the one won worn by Vatagin in distant Chersky. The museum makes no secret that scientific discovery goes hand-in-glove with business interests. Many of the bones retrieved by Vatagin and his adopted tribe end up at the Ice Age Museum in Moscow. The cash he pays the Yukagir tribesmen gives them a living. He himself dives into the ice-cold local rivers to look for relics. "To earn this money, he would have otherwise have to toil for a year."īut for Vatagin it is not just about money. "If he is lucky, a local can earn 200,000 roubles (£3,900) in just one day," said Vatagin, who wears a massive silver ring with a mammoth's head engraved into it. A pair of good tusks is a rarity two tusks and a well-preserved skull can be worth a fortune. Tusks, sometimes curled round almost into a circle and reaching up to 5 metres in length, are the most prized finds. But it takes a keen eye and local knowledge to find the really valuable stuff. Vatagin pays between 200 (£4) and 4,000 roubles (£78) per kg of mammoth bones. The permafrost is thawing and breaking up so rapidly that in certain places in the tundra, every few metres bones poke out through the soil. Prehistoric bones are not very hard to find. These tribesmen are his "finders", fanning out across the vast emptiness of the tundra seeking valuable artefacts.Īt regular intervals, Vatagin flies by helicopter to the main Yukagir settlement, Andryushkino, some 200 km (125 miles) west of the local centre of Chersky, to view the merchandise. "Their shamans convened a council and decided to name me a Yukagir," he added. "I must have earned the respect of the Yukagir," he said. A brawny 45-year-old, he has a network of helpers: the fishermen and reindeer-herders of the tiny Yukagir ethnic group, whose numbers have dwindled to about 800 people.
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