Rapidly melting ice patches in Canada's Yukon Territory have yielded a remarkable discovery: perfectly preserved antler-point harpoons dating back 6,000 years. Unlike typical archaeological finds, these tools retained their original animal-sinew lashings and resin adhesives, providing an unprecedented look at prehistoric hunting technology used by indigenous ancestors to hunt caribou on the ice.
The find is part of an urgent climate archaeology project to recover artifacts before they decompose upon exposure to the air. Researchers from the First Nations of the region are working alongside scientists to document these sites, which are effectively 'cold-storage' archives of human history. The artifacts provide crucial data on the migration patterns of both humans and animals during the mid-Holocene warming period.