The Activ Arctic Expedition 2014 Proposal International Forum ”Arctic-Territory of dialogue” Salekhard, September th, 2013 ‘

During the summer of 2014, we propose to sail along the Northern Maritime route, aboard a special ice-strengthened sailing ship, in order to collect new specimen of the first settlers of northern Russia and document Siberian migration to North America

Thanks to recent discoveries made by the Russian archaeologist, Vladimir Pitulko, we already have two specimens of ancient inhabitants of the far North. The first, dated B.P., was found on the bank of the Yana River

The second is a human bone found on Zhokhov Island, on the De Long Archipelago, and dated 8000 B.P. This summer, one of our teams collected a mandibula on the New Siberian Islands. A tiny sample has been extracted in order to establish the radiocarbon date of this bone.

In 2010, a team led by Prof. Eske Willersiev, of the University of Copenhagen, sequenced the genome of a 4000 year old man of the Saqqaq culture of Greenland using a hair sample. He discovered that the Saqqaq people were more closely related to the Chukchi people rather than the modern Inuit, providing researchers with unprecedented insight into the movement and the make- up of early Polar peoples.

GEOGENETICS: The techniques of geogenetics, developed by Eske Willerslev, allow us to reconstruct an entire ecosystems based on one teaspoon full of soil. It is now possible to reconstruct the history of Man down to minute details as to how they looked andwhere they came from. These new techniques may allow the expedition to yield significant new knowledge about the history of northern Siberia within the brief framework of the Arctic summer.

In our quest for ancient humans, we will visit many sites where Mammoths also lived and died. Another aim of the expedition is to collect, through ivory dealers, mammoth tusks in order to scan them at the St-Petersburg Zoological Museum and recover information contained in their rings, before they are exported and lost to science. This resource is finite and exhaustible. This program aims to safeguard, document, and study as many fossils as possible, because it is the volume of data that will permit us ultimately to shed new light on the evolution of mammoths. Project Dir. : Alexei Tikhonov

OTHER SCIENTIFIC PROJECTS: Sampling present DNA among Northern Siberia Natives for Reconstruction of Inhabitation History and Environment. Professor Vyacheslav Chasnyk from St-Petersburg State Pediatric Medical Academy

THE SHIP Activ is a three mast ice-strengthened schooner, built at Ring Andersen Ship Wharf in Denmark in 1952 for cargo transport in Southeast Greenland. Rebuilt as a yacht in 1976, it has a length of 42 metres and can accommodate 12 passengers and 5 crew members. It has been used as a research vessel for Arctic expeditions in 2008 and 2011 and has participated in many other projects, including the filming of Moby Dick. The expedition in 2011 led to the documentary, ‘The Expedition to the End of the World’, which received prizes at several international film festivals. For the Arctic expedition in 2014, Activ will have new ice-hooding and will be equipped with a winch and state-of-the-art scientific equipment for marine investigations. The expediton will bring several zodiacs and a small aircraft to support on- land investigations.

Activ on Greenland East coast

Due to its limited size, Activ can enter shallow waters and act as a mobile research station for projects on land

The small aircraft can be used for scientific reconnaissance and for finding routes in icy waters

OUTREACH AND DOCUMENTATION An international filming crew will be on board during the entire expedition to film scientific activities, the beauty of northern Siberia, and daily life aboard the ship. The film will be used for a documentary to be broadcast world-wide. The scientific results of the expedition will be published in high-ranking scientific journals such as Nature and Science.

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