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(upbeat music)
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There are places in Greater Yellowstone
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where snow never melts,
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or at least it never used to.
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These remote ice patches hide ancient artifacts
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perfectly preserved for thousands of years.
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(water trickling)
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Now, our warming climate is exposing these fragile treasures
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and soon there'll be lost forever.
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Once it's gone, it's gone.
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The longer it's melted out of an ice patch,
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the more it will be decayed.
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Every summer more clues
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about the early people that lived here come to light
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and the stakes get higher.
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It's a race against time
(water trickling)
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to save our hidden history from melting graves.
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Each time we get one step closer
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to the actual human being,
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we have an incrementally improved understanding
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of how attuned they were to their environment,
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and their ability to engage with it.
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The native people really were everywhere
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on this landscape.
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They were at 10,000 feet over 10,000 years ago.
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(upbeat music)
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When snow and ice accumulate at high elevations
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they never completely melt, even during summer.
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They build up over thousands of years.
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Glaciers move, they are conveyor belts
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{\an8}by definition how they operate
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{\an8}and ice patches tend to be static features.
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{\an8}They don't move, or if they do move, they don't move much.
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The artifacts remain close to the same spot
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where they landed.
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These are objects that were
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in the middle of their use of life and then are left
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as a result of whatever actions were taking place.
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The animals and humans
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left traces of their presence
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that have remained perfectly preserved.
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Each is a rare window into the distant past.
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The things that are the objects of material culture
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represent a great deal of time, energy and effort
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on the part of the person who manufactured it,
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or for whom they traded.
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And Yellowstone's ice patches
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reveal organic relics
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including Big Horn Sheep skulls
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that are over 5,000 years old.
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(water trickling)
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Ice patch archeologists are careful to respect
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the cultural significance of whatever lies beneath,
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and to consult with the local tribal representatives.
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Well, archeology is very important
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to preserving American Indian heritage,
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because we need to continue to learn about our story.
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{\an8}And we need to continue to tell our story
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{\an8}in a way that is more truthful,
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{\an8}that is more honest,
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{\an8}that is more human.
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(water trickling)
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We do not excavate at ice patches.
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The materials that come out of ice patches
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are all being released by what we generally refer to as
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atypical melting.
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Stone points and tools
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shed light on how early people hunted for food.
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We could look at this entire plateau
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{\an8}and do things like look at every one
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{\an8}of the obsidian artifacts,
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{\an8}and where did those obsidian artifacts come from?
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They came from volcanic rock
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that was quarried from the obsidian cliffs.
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And some entered a trading network
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that extended from British Columbia to the Midwest.
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The most prized was Yellowstone obsidian,
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and that obsidian was also easily harvested
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and therefore easily tradable.
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And I believe archeologists have placed it
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as one of the most traded objects in world history.
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And we find it an all four corners of the continent.
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At the highest altitudes in Greater Yellowstone
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stone tools make up most of what scientists uncover.
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90%, 95% of all the archeology that we deal with
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is comprised of this inorganic element.
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And yet that only really likely represented
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about 5% of the total culture of the folks
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that you might be interested in studying.
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Yellowstone's early people
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interacted with groups outside their homelands,
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and that also indicates a sophisticated culture.
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The Greater Yellowstone area groups
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were more sophisticated than they're commonly portrayed.
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These people were masters at understanding the landscape,
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where to be at certain times of the year.
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They understood the movement of the animals.
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Oftentimes we consider
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people of the Greater Yellowstone area to be nomadic.
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The fact of the matter is
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all of their movements were planned.
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More proof of this is found in the bones,
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hides, and remnants of early campsites
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emerging from the ice.
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The collection is representative of what's going on
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in the Greater Yellowstone.
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One bone even show signs
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that an early American split it open to enjoy the marrow.
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The organic matter
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reveals details about the daily lives
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of Yellowstone's earliest people
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beyond their hunting skills.
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And so that's where these
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uniquely preservative environments like ice patches
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provide this entree to understand the past
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in a much more robust way.
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The wooden shafts, sinews, and woven pieces
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are of particular interest to Craig.
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The wood is not haphazard.
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You make very careful selection
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of the types of wood that you're using for your dart shafts,
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for your main shafts.
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You make careful selection on the types of sinew
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that you would use for lashing,
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the types of feathers that you would use for fletching.
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But beyond following their prey,
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why did early people travel to such high elevations?
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It's an escape from hotter temperatures down low.
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And we see that folks likely went to Alpine environments
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to engage in provision, not just for food subsistence,
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but I think also spiritual subsistence.
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So this is another one of these things where
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again we don't have all the answers,
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and that's kind of the fun part of this work
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is that we have this opportunity
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to explore things that are not easily identified.
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(spiritual music)
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Archeologists and tribal representatives
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work together to preserve these pieces of pre-history
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before it's too late.
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I think that they went to the mountains 10,000 years ago
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for the same reasons that we go to the mountains.
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The ice patches reveal
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the ways humans used the high altitude environments
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beginning about 10,000 years ago.
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The folks had a complete and total understanding
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of how those environments operated,
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where they could expect animals to be present
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at certain times of year,
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but also reasonable source of water.
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All of these things suggest
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that these are people that are very much in tune
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with their environment.
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For thousands of years,
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large mammals have migrated up to the ice patches
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during summer to escape heat and biting insects.
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Native people understood that animal movements
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like bison, elk, and deer
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were very much closely aligned to the wind.
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And it's the wind that carries the smell of the grass.
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And it's the smell of that grass
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that causes those animals to move.
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Early people strategically followed their game
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into the high mountains.
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We've got numerous instances of bison
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in association with ice patches,
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but the Big Horn Sheep have the most demonstrable evidence
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for having been hunted at those locations.
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Once an animal reached the ice,
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it was difficult for them to flee the hunters.
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When the hunters and their families returned to the flats
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they left behind clues about their time near the ice.
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That could be a bark, like a cherry bark.
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It's twisted leather, it's not braided,
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it's maybe more simply twisted.
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We've done ancient DNA on that, that leather.
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And I was expecting it to be sheep given the context,
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high up in the Alpine, but it turns out it's elk.
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Snow falls every year in these spots,
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and when the top layer melts during summer
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it compresses the layers underneath.
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(water trickling)
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This results in snapshots into the past
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that span thousands of years.
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I believe there to be permafrost underneath ice patches.
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Ice patches can be quite thin in some instances,
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and only a few meters deep,
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and they can contain archeological record
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that's 6,000, 7,000, 10,000 years old.
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Permafrost below the ice patches
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would assist preservation,
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but it won't be much help if the surface ice melts.
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(water trickling)
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Yellowstone's ice patches also tell the climate story
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from 10,000 years ago through today.
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And now the biggest thaw in recent history
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is releasing the long frozen items at an alarming rate.
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Few scientists specialize in ice patch archeology.
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I suspect you're probably looking at
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less than 25 folks worldwide
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that are really actively engaged in ice patch archeology,
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and actually doing field research.
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Ice patch research and recovery
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is very different from what we typically imagine
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archeology to be.
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These are places that most of the year
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are in heavily snow-covered areas.
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And consequently, the window in which
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we have access to the materials is narrow.
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The window is only about two weeks per year,
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and conditions are never predictable.
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Google Earth, with its high resolution satellite image,
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has helped to refine survey locations.
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The scientists also fly aerial reconnaissance
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over 24,000 square miles searching for ice patches
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that seem most likely to yield artifacts.
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We can grade those ice patches based on their potential.
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In the high mountains,
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the team searches for any ice patches
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that appear to be retreating.
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And then for anything sticking out of the surface.
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Dr. Craig Lee recovered
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the oldest intact wooden artifact
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ever found in a Yellowstone ice patch,
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a Birch dart shaft with personal markings near the tip.
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The tool even has ownership markings.
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This is a large instrument,
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probably around four feet long,
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and it was notched by the designer, by the maker,
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with three little marks.
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And the maker of this was able to
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imbue his power into this dart.
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And also to allow others to know that this belonged to him.
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Radiocarbon dating
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showed it to be an astonishing 10,300 years old.
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All living things are actively incorporating
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radioactive carbon that is
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omnipresent throughout the atmosphere,
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and throughout the biosphere into their system.
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Based on the amount of radiocarbon
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that is left in an artifact,
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we can tell you how long that thing has ceased to be alive.
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The scientists must recover the artifacts first
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but Earth's clock is ticking.
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The ice patches have shrunk by 50% over the last year alone.
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(water trickling)
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According to NOAA,
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every year our planet is getting warmer.
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Two places where the effects of global warming
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are clearly evident are Montana's Glacier Park,
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and the Greater Yellowstone area.
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Higher temperatures in the Alpine regions
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are problematic for wildlife and plants,
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and disastrous for the organic ice patch artifacts.
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Glaciers maybe track a decadal average,
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whereas ice patches can really respond in a given year.
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You really have to be there within the year
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in which that material melts out.
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(water trickling)
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This never before seen chapter in human history
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is in danger of being lost forever.
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(water trickling)
20479
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