Experts Found A Perfectly Preserved Ice-Age Puppy In Siberia – With Its Last Meal Still Inside

In the icy wilds of rural Siberia, a team of Russian researchers dug down into the permafrost. Buried in the frozen ground, they discovered the mummified remains of a canine pup, frozen in time for 14,000 years. But as they took a closer look, they realized that this ancient creature was hiding a truly remarkable secret.

A final meal

After careful excavation, the pup – dubbed Tumat after the region where it was found – was shipped to a laboratory for analysis. And there, experts discovered evidence of the predator’s final meal, preserved inside its stomach for all to see. So what exactly was on the menu during the last Ice Age?

Wolf or dog?

Since the pup’s discovery ten years ago, experts have speculated over its true nature. Was it, for example, a wolf or a domesticated dog? And if the latter, to what extent did it live in harmony with the humans who roamed Siberia thousands of years ago? Using DNA analysis, experts have begun to unravel the secrets behind this canine mystery.

Prehistoric food chain

The pup’s last meal, though, is perhaps the most fascinating part of all. Consumed shortly before the creature drew its final breath, this snack reveals a fascinating insight into the food chain of Siberia during prehistoric times. Now, experts have finally figured out its true nature – and the results might surprise you.

Siberian permafrost

The story began back in 2011 when a team of researchers discovered the pup’s body in Tumat, a rural region in the Ust-Yansky District of north-eastern Russia. Despite their obvious age, the canine remains had been perfectly preserved, thanks to the permafrost that covers the ground in this part of Siberia.

Frozen ground

Of course, it’s not the first time that the Siberian permafrost has yielded some fascinating discoveries. But what exactly is it – and how does it preserve specimens so remarkably intact? Essentially, the name is used to describe areas of frozen ground that typically exist close to our planet’s two poles.

Ice Age relics

In some cases, areas of permafrost have been in a frozen state for as little as two years. But in others, they have remained the same for several millennia. And it is in these regions, which have not thawed since the last Ice Age, that scientists often stumble across fascinating mummified finds.

Giant freezer

Because the ground is always frozen, areas of permafrost are capable of preserving bodies for long stretches of time – even since the prehistoric era. Speaking to the online tech and science magazine Inverse, Ph.D. student Edana Lord explained, “[It’s] essentially like a giant freezer, keeping things cold for thousands of years.”

Mummification

“When an animal is buried quickly after it dies – for example if it falls down a crevice – it can become mummified,” Lord continued. Protected from the bacteria that would normally cause decay, these bodies remain much the same as on the day they died. And now, melting permafrost around the world is revealing all sorts of fascinating finds. 

Yuka the mammoth

Take, for example, the mummified woolly mammoth that was found encased in the Siberian permafrost in 2010. Dubbed Yuka after the nearby village of Yukagir where it was discovered, it soon became famous as the best-preserved example of its species known to science. According to experts, it died almost 40,000 years ago.

Key to cloning

Despite the mammoth’s great age, though, scientists discovered something unexpected running through its veins. Speaking to the Siberian Times newspaper, North Eastern Federal University’s Semyon Grigoriev explained, “It is the first time we managed to obtain mammoth blood.” Now, some believe that the genetic material preserved in the permafrost could hold the key to cloning these giant beasts.

Ötzi the Iceman

And it’s not just creatures from the animal kingdom that have been discovered literally frozen in time. In 1991 two tourists hiking in the Ötztal Alps on the border of Austria and Italy stumbled across an astonishing find. There, encased in ice, was the body of a human male, initially believed to have recently passed away.

Chalcolithic man

Closer investigation, though, revealed that the body belonged to a man who had lived during the Chalcolithic era, approximately 5,300 years ago. Like permafrost, the cold mountain environment had preserved him in excellent condition, allowing experts an invaluable glimpse into prehistoric life. Today, Ötzi the Iceman can be seen on display in an Italian museum.

Ancient pup

Back in Siberia, experts were keen to learn more about the ancient pup unearthed from the frozen ground. And so, its remains were sent for analysis, which determined that the creature was aged somewhere between three and nine months at the time of its death. Plenty of other factors, though, remained a mystery.

14,000 years old

In fact, experts have been unable to conclude whether the pup is that of a wolf or a dog. Radiocarbon dating, the website Live Science reported, has revealed that the canine was alive some 14,000 years ago – around the time that humans were first beginning to domesticate these creatures.

On the cusp of domestication

“I think it falls around the critical point for the dog/wolf domestication,” Lord, who studies at Sweden’s Centre for Palaeogenetics, told Live Science in 2020. Apparently, work is ongoing to unravel more of Tumat’s story. In the meantime, researchers have been trying to solve another puzzle connected with this prehistoric pup.

Thick yellow fur

During an autopsy, experts spotted something unusual inside Tumat’s stomach: the remains of the pup’s last meal. But what exactly was it? According to reports, the undigested tissue was covered in a thick layer of yellow fur. Based on this, some researchers hypothesized that the creature had dined on a cave lion before its untimely death.

Cave lion

An extinct species of big cat, cave lions were of the same genus as modern-day tigers, lions and leopards. And like Tumat, specimens have been uncovered from the Siberian permafrost, suggesting that the creatures once thrived in this region. Moreover, they died out about 13,000 years ago – making them a realistic contender for the pup’s final meal. 

DNA analysis

But when the tissue sample from Tumat’s stomach arrived at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, this story began to unravel. By analyzing DNA extracted from the lump of flesh, experts were able to rule a cave lion out of the equation. What, then, had the pup consumed on its last day on Earth? 

Searching the archives

“When they got the DNA back, it didn’t look like a cave lion,” evolutionary genetics professor Love Dalén, who also works for the Centre for Palaeogenetics, told TV news network CNN in 2020. Hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery, the team delved into their archives in search of a match.

A perfect match

“We have a reference database and mitochondrial DNA from all mammals, so we checked the sequence data against that and the results came back,” Dr. Dalén explained. Rather than a cave lion, it seems, the tissue belonged to an entirely different sort of creature: a woolly rhinoceros. In fact, it was nearly a “perfect match.”

Woolly rhinoceros

During the Pleistocene era, which spanned a period from 2.5 million years ago to the end of the last Ice Age, woolly rhinos thrived across much of Asia and Europe. Today, experts believe that the creatures’ thick hair allowed them to survive in cold, harsh environments, living alongside prehistoric humans in the region known as the mammoth steppe.

Mythical beasts

As time marched on and the global climate changed, the woolly rhinos migrated in search of more favorable conditions. But eventually, they became extinct, vanishing off the face of the Earth at roughly the same time that the Ice Age ended. Thousands of years later, their bones would be uncovered by humans who believed that they were looking at the remains of mythical beasts. 

A long-dead snack

So how did this particular woolly rhino end up in Tumat’s stomach? Of course, it was possible that the creature died long before the pup encountered it, lying preserved in the permafrost for centuries only for it to later thaw and become a convenient snack. But carbon dating has shown that both creatures were alive at about the same time.

Last of its kind?

In fact, experts believe that this particular woolly rhino lived approximately 14,400 years ago –  give or take three centuries. Tumat, then, likely chowed down on a living creature, rather than one that was already dead. But that’s not all. According to the experts, the beast may well have been one of the last of its kind.

Endangered species

“This puppy, we know, has been dated to roughly 14,000 years ago,” Dr. Dalén explained. “We also know that the woolly rhinoceros goes extinct 14,000 years ago. So, potentially, this puppy has eaten one of the last remaining woolly rhinos.” Speaking to Live Science, Lord agreed that Tumat may have unwittingly helped to kill off an endangered species.

Not very digested

So what exactly happened 14,000 years ago? Well, experts believe that Tumat did not live for long after consuming this final meal. Dalén continued, “This puppy must have died very shortly after eating the rhino, because it’s not very digested.” Precisely how the canine expired, though, remains a matter of some speculation.

Landslide theory

According to some sources, the pup may have been caught in a landslide which caused its body to become trapped and, at length, preserved. Yet Lord told Live Science that the creature “doesn’t look like it’s been squashed.” In reality, we may never know how Tumat met his end – although there is plenty of room for guesswork.

Too big to tackle alone

Currently, scientists are equally unsure about the exact circumstances surrounding Tumat’s last meal. According to Lord, it is unlikely that the pup took down the woolly rhino all on its own. After all, she told CNN, the creatures were similar in size to the white rhinos which inhabit Kenya today.

White rhinos

After the African and Asian elephant, the modern white rhino is the third-largest land mammal alive, capable of growing to more than 13 feet in length. In other words, they are not the sort of beast that a small dog or wolf could easily overpower. Clearly, then, Tumat must have had help – but from who or what?

A scavenging pack

Speaking to Live Science, Lord explained that the pup “may have been one of a scavenging pack, and that the wolves either took down the rhino, or were looking for food and came across a rhino carcass.” Meanwhile, Dr. Dalén speculated that this choice of meal may have been what brought about Tumat’s swift demise.

Mother's revenge

“We don’t know if [Tumat] was a wolf, but if it was a wolf cub, maybe it came across a baby rhino that was dead, or the [adult] wolf ate the baby rhino,” Dr. Dalén told CNN. “Maybe as they were eating it, the mother rhino had her revenge.” While this might make a good story, though, there is currently no evidence to support this version of events.  

Domestication

Alternatively, Lord told Live Science, Tumat may have been part of a domesticated pack. And if so, it’s possible that the pup’s human owners hunted the creature and shared the meat with their devoted dog. Whatever happened, though, it seems clear that this event happened at about the same time that woolly rhinos were disappearing from our planet.

Why bye-bye woolly rhino?

But what exactly was it that caused the extinction of the woolly rhino? According to Live Science, experts believe it unlikely that predators – even human ones – were a significant contributing factor. In August 2020 a paper co-authored by Lord and Dr. Dalén was published in the scientific journal Current Biology. In it, the pair explored the creatures’ ultimate demise, assisted in part by the sample retrieved from Tumat’s stomach. 

A time machine

According to the paper it was likely to have been climate change, and not human predation, that caused the woolly rhino to go extinct. By analyzing DNA from 14 specimens, they were able to draw some fascinating conclusions about the life cycle of the species. Writing for CNN in 2020 Dr. Dalén explained, “It’s a bit like having a time machine where we can travel back through time and study evolutionary change as it is happening in real time.”

Opening a freezer

Again, it was the cold conditions of Siberia that helped to preserve these specimens, allowing Lord and Dr. Dalén to study them thousands of years down the line. In an email to CNN, Nicolas Dussex from the Centre for Palaeogenetics, who also worked on the study, likened the process to “opening a freezer that was closed during the last Ice Age.”

Bølling-Allerød interstadial

According to reports, research suggests that woolly rhinos disappeared suddenly, rather than experiencing a gradual decline. What’s more, their extinction coincided with an event known as the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, a brief period of warming that saw a sharp rise in temperatures across the globe. As a result, the creatures’ habitat experienced a drastic shift.

Climate change

“The temperature change was fast, Dr. Dalén told CNN. “Some records from ice cores taken on Greenland suggest an increase in temperature by… 18 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly within as little as a few decades.” Where the woolly rhinos had previously thrived on grassland terrain, they were now faced with a wooded area of shrubland that was not conducive to their diet.

Genomic adaptations

On top of that, Lord explained, the very attributes which had previously helped the creatures to survive in Siberia, such as thick hair, may have contributed to their demise. Speaking to Live Science, she explained, “Because of these genomic adaptations to the Arctic climate, they probably weren’t well-adapted to deal with the warming climate.”

Closer to the truth

Eventually, then, the woolly rhinos died out, leaving only the odd set of preserved remains behind. Thousands of years later, scientists such Lord and Dr. Dalén are picking over their bones, trying to unravel the story of these majestic beasts. With every discovery like Tumat’s last meal, they come a little step closer to the truth. Actually, experts are even learning more about our own evolution from primitive humanoids.

Tracing back history

An organization called the Cancer Research Institute made headlines when they discovered the oldest strain of DNA in the Americas in Darrell “Dusty” Crawford, whose Native American Blackfoot name is Lone Bull. The immediately astonishing thing about Crawford’s test was how far back the scientists at the CRI have traced his genetic history. In fact, the company has said that it has never managed to delve this far back in time before. And this achievement could force a rethink on the history of humans in the Americas.

Blackfeet nation

Crawford lives in Heart Butte, Montana, a city located in the 1.5 million acres of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in the north-west of the state. With a population of more than 17,000, the Blackfeet Nation is one of America’s largest Native American tribes. Three other Blackfeet reservations are located in Alberta, Canada.

Human migration

We’ve made the startling assertion that Crawford’s DNA test may have a major impact on what we think about the arrival of humans on the American continent. But what precisely do we know on this subject? Well, the best-known theory describes a migration of people from the northern territory of what is now Siberia into the land we today know as Alaska.

Ice age

To understand how humans might have migrated from Siberia to Alaska, we have to go back to the time of the last Ice Age. In fact, what is commonly called the Ice Age was actually a period of glaciation. There have been five ice ages in our planet’s history and we’re currently in one called the Quaternary, which started 2.6 million years ago.

Glaciation

Simply put, an ice age is defined as a period when both of Earth’s poles are covered in ice. And glaciations are periods when the ice extends across much of the planet, of which there have been 12 in the last one million years. The last glaciation peaked around 18,000 years ago and came to an end about 11,700 years ago.

Bering Strait

And it was this during this last glaciation period, around 15,000 years ago, when experts say that humans crossed from Siberia into Alaska. Today, walking that route is an impossibility thanks to the obstacle of the Bering Sea which separates the two landmasses. But because so much of the world’s water was locked up as ice back then, sea levels were as much as 400 feet lower.

Evidence of human crossing

With sea levels so different to how they are now, it was likely possible to cross from Siberia to Alaska. And it’s more than just a mere theory. In fact, there is archaeological evidence for an ancient land-bridge migration. One example of this comes from a find made by a team led by the University of Alaska’s Dr. Ben Potter.

Recovered skeletons

Now, Potter and his colleagues discovered the skeletons of two children, both girls. One had been still-born, the other died not long after birth. And the bodies had been buried beneath a campfire some 11,500 years ago. The location of the excavation was the Upper Sun River which lies in central Alaska in the Tanana River Basin.

Extracted DNA

Interestingly, scientists were able to extract mitochondrial DNA from the older infant. This particular type of genetic material enables researchers to identify the female ancestry line for an individual. And this sample matched the DNA found in contemporary Native Americans. That strongly suggests a connection between the child found in central Alaska and people who lived – and live – further south in the Americas.

Genetic connections

The significance of this find is that the land the site occupies is believed to have been part of the ancient land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Today, of course, much of what was once dry land is now underwater. Although there is no genetic connection with people in modern Siberia, it’s believed that’s because settlers spent long enough living near the land bridge, after crossing it, for genetic diversity to arise. But their genes do match those of some Native Americans alive today.

Further evidence discovered

Further evidence of humans crossing into the American continent from Siberia came in a study published in May 2020. And the research was led by He Yu of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. The study focused on a single fossilized human tooth which dates back to the Upper Paleolithic era, some 14,000 years ago. It was discovered in southern Siberia, near Lake Baikal.

Genetic material matched

Now, the male tooth yielded enough DNA to work with. And the analysis showed the genetic material was a particular mix of DNA from north-east Asia and north Eurasia. That is a match for the genetic material found in many contemporary Native Americans. So this dating pushed back the earliest known DNA of this type from 11,500 to 14,000 years ago.

Genetic fingerprint

Talking to New Scientist in May 2020, Yu said, “It’s not a population that moved to America and then just disappeared in the Eurasian continent.” She added that in ancient times this genetic fingerprint extended across Siberia during a time when the population there was still closely associating with people from north-east Asia.

Studying ancient Siberia

Meanwhile, Anders Bergstrom of the Francis Crick Institute in London added his view in the New Scientist. He said, “What this and other ancient DNA studies are showing is that to understand the origins of Native American populations, one must study ancient Siberia.” Of course, this point adds to the credibility of the land bridge theory.

Genetic contact zone

And Bergstrom continued, “Lake Baikal appears to have been a genetic contact zone for a long time, bringing together people from the west and the east both early on in the Paleolithic and more recently during the Bronze Age.” If Bergstrom is correct, these Siberian people may be the ancestors of today’s Native Americans.

Challenging the Siberia migration theory

However, the idea that the first Americans crossed into the continent via that ancient land bridge from Siberia to Alaska is not entirely unchallenged. Writing for National Geographic in June 2018 author and journalist Simon Worrall outlined the alternative theories in a series of questions.

Other possibilities

Worrall wrote, “How did human beings first come to North America? Across the Bering Strait, on foot? Down the ‘kelp highway’ by boat? Across the Atlantic via the polar ice cap? And when did they reach here? 10,000 years ago? 40,000? Or were they always here, as the Navajo and other Native American tribes believe?” As you can see, there are many possibilities.

Native American origins

Furthermore, in the National Geographic article, Worrall interviewed Craig Childs who had just published a book on Native American origins, Atlas of a Lost World. And Childs confirms that the land bridge theory is the most prominent line of thought. However, he goes on to outline claims that the first people to settle in the Americas had arrived by boat from Europe.

Evidence supporting transatlantic theory

That transatlantic theory is supported by the frequent finds of ancient Clovis Weapons on America’s east coast. Often in the form of arrowheads or spear points, these artifacts bear a striking resemblance to weaponry found in Spain and southern France, Childs explained. This seaborne route would have seen people sailing across the Atlantic in skin-covered vessels and landing in Virginia or Maryland.

Native beliefs

To add to that, Childs discusses the beliefs of Native Americans themselves. Some Natives hold that, “The first people there came out of the ground. These are stories related to origin and creation stories all over the Americas. Native tribes have clear stories about how they got here, coming out of caves or up through springs and underground sources.”

Multifaceted explanation

Childs said that, “We think of the arrival of the first people as one group braving their way across a land bridge, when in fact it was many groups, many different languages, and technologies arriving at different times from different directions.” So, perhaps the truth is that the story of the arrival of humans in the Americas is multifaceted.