Scientists discover that 75,000 -year -old Arctic animals remain in the Norwegian cave

Scientists discovered the remains of a vast animal community that lived in the European Arctic 75,000 years ago.

The bones of 46 types of animals – including mammals, fish and birds – were discovered in a cave on the northern coast of Norway, representing the oldest example of an animal community in the European Arctic during this warmer period of the ice era.

The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNA).

The research team believes that bones will help scientists understand how fauna has reacted once to spectacular climate change, ideas that will be very relevant to conservation work today.

“These discoveries provide a rare snapshot of a missing Arctic world,” said the first author of the study, Dr. Sam Walker of the University of Bournemouth and the University of Oslo. “They also emphasize how vulnerable species can be vulnerable in changing climatic conditions, which can help us understand their resilience and their risk of extinction in the present,” he added.

Among the animals they identified were the polar bear, the Morse, the Archery Head Whale, the Pruck of the Atlantic, the Common Eider, the Rocky Ptarmigan and the Atlantic Cod. The team has also found lemmings in collar, a species which is now extinct in Europe and which had never been found in Scandinavia so far.

DNA tests also revealed that the lines of these animals did not survive when the colder conditions had returned.

“We have very little evidence of the life of the Arctic during this period due to the lack of conservation of more than 10,000 years,” said the principal professor of the author Sanne Boessenkool of the University of Oslo. “The cave has now revealed a diversified mix of animals in a coastal ecosystem representing both the marine and terrestrial environment,” she added.

Arne Qvamgrotta’s cave was discovered in the 1990s, when a local mining industry built a tunnel through the neighboring mountain. He had remained largely unexplored for almost 30 years when the research team carried out large excavations in 2021 and 2022 and discovered the secrets of the cave.

The variety of animals suggests that habitat at the time was largely without ice along the coast after the glaciers melted. This would have provided an appropriate habitat for the migratory reindeer of which they discovered the remains.

The presence of freshwater fish means that there would have been lakes and rivers in the tundra and that there was to have been sea ice off the coast for some of the mammals, such as the archers and the bites. Sea ice cream was likely to be seasonal because the porpoises of the port, also found among the remains of animals, are known to avoid ice.

Although these animals colonized the region after the glaciers melted during this period, it seems that whole populations are dead because they could not migrate to alternative ecosystems when the ice returned and covered the landscape.

“This underlines how species adapted to cold have difficulty adapting to major climatic events. This has a direct link with the challenges they face in the Arctic today while the climate warms up at a quick rate,” said Dr. Walker. “The habitats of these animals in the region live today are much more fractured than 75,000 years ago, so it is even more difficult for animal populations to move and adapt,” he added.

“It is also important to note that it was a passage to a period of warmer warming, no warming we face today,” said Professor Boessenkool. “And these are species adapted to cold-so if they have trouble facing colder periods in the past, it will be even more difficult for these species to adapt to a warming climate,” she concluded.

The study was a collaboration between the University of Oslo, the University of Bournemouth, the Museum of the University of Bergen, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and other institutions.