GRIFFITHS: On a bleak and inhospitable Arctic shoreline, hardy adventurers search for giants. Their prey is the same creature stalked by hunters thousands of years ago. For this modern expedition, the catch is embedded in ice but every summer the Arctic thaw reveals its ancient secrets.
IVAN: Its like fishing, some days you catch lots, some days nothing. Now were waiting for stormy weather. Maybe then something will appear.
GRIFFITHS: This place seems barren, but its abundant in one precious resource a gift from prehistoric times. Now its worth a fortune to these men.
Like all treasure, everybody wants it and theres a fight over who should get it. The Siberian tundra has become the battleground in this conflict between business, science and indigenous people. They are now all hunters in the quest for this unique prize.
Once the plains of Siberia teemed with millions of woolly mammoths. They thrived in the cold conditions of the last ice age. But ten thousand years ago they began to die out. Scientists still arent sure whether to blame climate change or hunting. The mammoths may be extinct, but their tusks are well preserved in this arctic deep freeze.
Im on a journey across northern Siberia. In the vast expanse of tundra below lie the remains of an estimated 150 million mammoths. Georgy Gavrilliev has built a business out of finding them and selling their valuable tusks. Hes taking me to the ivory frontline. The shore of the Arctic Ocean is a mammoth treasure trove.
The ivory hunters camp seems to be in the middle of nowhere. They live in a tent all summer while they search for ivory on the shore and in creek beds. Its a hard life but for these tough Siberian men its a pleasant summer break.
IVAN: Weve lived in the tundra since we were children. It is like going on a hunt for a few kilometres. We live like were at home here. No problem.
GRIFFITHS: Its a holiday with profit in mind. But this season hasnt been very lucrative so far. The hunters have found mostly mammoth bones and teeth, ancient remains of no real value to them. Ivory is a money earner.
IVAN: Usually in a normal year youd get about 200,000 roubles ($US7,000) worth. If it is a good year you can earn more.
GRIFFITHS: Their one lucky break was finding a tusk jutting out of the muddy beach just downstream.
BORIS: The tusk was sticking out of the sand about 300 metres from the sea. A small edge was sticking up, so we shovelled it out.
GRIFFITHS: Was this a big mammoth?
BORIS: Well, certainly not a small one.
GRIFFITHS: Its cracked and broken. This is poor quality ivory.
BORIS: Its not a complete tusk. A complete one would probably weigh about 60 kilograms. I think it was an adult mammoth otherwise how could it carry such a burden?
GRIFFITHS: My guide, Georgy Gavrilliev is a potential buyer. He checks out the lone tusk and decides to make a bid.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: It weighs about 30 to 35 kilograms plus it is damp.
IVAN: Yeah, its damp.
GRIFFITHS: The deal is done. Georgy Gavrilliev bought the tusk for seven hundred dollars. His asking price on the international market will be about five thousand.
The nearest patch of civilisation for the ivory hunters is the former Soviet outpost of Chokurdakh. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, this town has been almost abandoned by the authorities. The remaining two thousand residents live off the land hunting and fishing. Its a harsh existence. In winter the temperature falls to fifty degrees below zero. But underground theres ancient treasure here too. Georgy Gavrilliev has tracked it down in a frozen basement. The tusk has been stored well in these sub-zero temperatures. Its a good find, an attractive piece for an overseas collector.
Outside, Georgy takes a closer look to judge its quality.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: It came out to the surface a bit too early, so it was exposed to the wind.
GRIFFITHS: Georgy Gavrillievs business success depends on his knowledge of these ancient relics and on his good relations with the men who find them.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: Okay. I am going to give you 20,000.
ALEXANDER MAKAROV: Dollars?
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: Sure! In our hard currency, roubles.
ALEXANDER MAKAROV: I want 50,000.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: Fine. Lets bargain.
GRIFFITHS: The mammoth entrepreneur has struck another deal. The hunters are pleased with the sale. Their livelihood depends on the chance discovery of an animal that died out thousands of years ago.
ALEXANDER MAKAROV: There is not much work around. You cant find work which will provide enough earnings. People live on that. Everybody looks for tusks here. Every family does it.
GRIFFITHS: The city of Yakutsk is the next stop in the come-back journey of the woolly mammoth. This is the capital of the autonomous state of Yakutia, one of Russias richest regions a frontier town buzzing with wealth from diamond and gold mining.
Now this city is on the verge of another rush one driven by the extinction of a species 10,000 years ago. Yakutsk is the centre of the mammoth ivory trade and its gateway to the rest of the world.
In a small studio in the city centre, ivory artist Konstantin Mamontov is at work. His name literally means mammoth.
KONSTANTIN MAMONTOV: Sometimes I say it was a name given to us by God. Maybe somebody there decided that I must carve mammoth ivory.
GRIFFITHS: Konstantin Mamontov has carved ivory souvenirs for nearly forty years. His pieces are sold in local shops and exported to Japan and China. They even decorate Scottish bagpipes. Lately his work has taken on a new importance a worldwide ban on elephant ivory has created new demand for the tusks of their prehistoric cousins. In the last few years the value of mammoth ivory has doubled to more than one hundred dollars a kilo.
KONSTANTIN MAMONTOV: You must work hard today. You must make original works out of mammoth ivory. Then it will bring us more money, more foreign currency. Our republic, our Russia will become wealthy.
GRIFFITHS: The souvenir market is part of a grand plan to make mammoth ivory the signature business of Yakutia. To control and encourage the trade, only licensed companies can buy and sell. Indigenous people too are allowed to cash-in on any mammoth remains they might stumble across. Gennady Alexeyev is the local governments point man on Yakutias new commodity.
GENNADY ALEXEYEV: We are creating workshops where the hunters and fishermen will bring in the tusks theyve found and will get either money or necessary products in return.
GRIFFITHS: There are other players in this prehistoric treasure hunt and theyre being left out in the cold.
DR MARK SHATTS: Winter, winter in the middle of summer.
GRIFFITHS: Dr Mark Shatts office is a freezing underground laboratory.
DR MARK SHATTS: This is a famous mammoth baby. He has two ages six months . . and 39,000 years.
GRIFFITHS: This is a copy of one of the most complete mammoths ever found. The real one is under scientific study in St Petersburg.
So how deep are we here?
DR MARK SHATTS: Twelve metres.
GRIFFITHS: From his icebox laboratory, Dr Shatts studies the permafrost, a layer of frozen soil that runs as thick as fifteen hundred metres beneath much of Siberia. This natural deepfreeze has preserved the remains of millions of mammoths. Vegetation ten thousand years old hangs out of an icy wall.
Wow.
DR MARK SHATTS: In modern times, 65% of our country is covered in permafrost. In the European part of Russia its only on the Arctic coastline. The Asian part is almost fully covered. And in Yakutia we have 95% of permafrost.
GRIFFITHS: Above ground, the citys inhabitants are captive to the permafrost too. Every house here is built on poles. If they were closer to the ground, theyd melt the frozen soil and foundations would crumble. With global warming, temperatures might be on the rise but Dr Shatts is sure it wont make any difference to Siberias underground freeze.
DR MARK SHATTS: Permafrost doesnt change as a result of human factors. Its like sticking pins in an elephants skin. The main reason is climate, the geological processes that happen. Its all very slow. Nature doesnt stand for revolutions.
GRIFFITHS: Mammoths are valuable not for what they can be sold for, but for what their ancient remains reveal about the past.
At the nearby mammoth museum, the display is impressive but researchers like Albert Protopopov are worried that science has been trampled in the rush for mammoth ivory.
ALBERT PROTOPOPOV: The tusks contain especially important information. They grow layers like wood rings the ring width depends on climate and food conditions. The conditions had an impact on the structure of the bone stratification.
GRIFFITHS: Hes somewhat comforted by a new regulation forcing companies to hand over a sample of every tusk they find for scientific analysis. But the scientists are losing out in the race to unearth mammoth remains. They just dont have enough money to compete.
ALBERT PROTOPOPOV: Yakutia has a large territory. In order to launch an expedition you have to book tens of helicopter flying hours. One flying hour costs more than 1,000 euros. Everything is expensive.
GRIFFITHS: A mammoth find is the stuff dreams are made of for the people of Chokurdakh. Nikolai, like many men in the town, struggles to find work. But hidden in his garage is a bizarre secret. Nikolai hopes hes hit the jackpot with this treasure its a skull.
NIKOLAI: It is only for a museum collection. Or maybe some billionaire will buy it and put it at home. There are some collectors who like it.
GRIFFITHS: Nikolai says hes not the only local hiding prehistoric remains in his back shed but by keeping the mammoth skull hes defying a centuries old superstition of his indigenous community. Legend has it that those who find the prehistoric animals are cursed.
NIKOLAI: People say you shouldnt look for them on purpose. You should only find them accidentally. People say it brings bad luck or something.
GRIFFITHS: So far, Nikolai hasnt seen any evidence of that but hes still waiting for a buyer.
Trader Georgy Gavrilliev, himself an indigenous person, is keeping an open mind about the legend. But it hasnt dampened his ambition to make a profit from the ancient animals.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: In reality it is not good to dig out something that has died. I quite agree there is a shady side. Ive heard of certain stories that people who found tusks have had some problems. I dont know whether it is connected or not.
GRIFFITHS: Superstition aside, theres a booming business in scouring for the remains of a beast that once dominated this landscape. Long after its extinction, the woolly mammoth continues to bring fortune and success. Thousands of years on, this prehistoric prey is as real as ever to modern hunters.
IVAN: Its like fishing, some days you catch lots, some days nothing. Now were waiting for stormy weather. Maybe then something will appear.
GRIFFITHS: This place seems barren, but its abundant in one precious resource a gift from prehistoric times. Now its worth a fortune to these men.
Like all treasure, everybody wants it and theres a fight over who should get it. The Siberian tundra has become the battleground in this conflict between business, science and indigenous people. They are now all hunters in the quest for this unique prize.
Once the plains of Siberia teemed with millions of woolly mammoths. They thrived in the cold conditions of the last ice age. But ten thousand years ago they began to die out. Scientists still arent sure whether to blame climate change or hunting. The mammoths may be extinct, but their tusks are well preserved in this arctic deep freeze.
Im on a journey across northern Siberia. In the vast expanse of tundra below lie the remains of an estimated 150 million mammoths. Georgy Gavrilliev has built a business out of finding them and selling their valuable tusks. Hes taking me to the ivory frontline. The shore of the Arctic Ocean is a mammoth treasure trove.
The ivory hunters camp seems to be in the middle of nowhere. They live in a tent all summer while they search for ivory on the shore and in creek beds. Its a hard life but for these tough Siberian men its a pleasant summer break.
IVAN: Weve lived in the tundra since we were children. It is like going on a hunt for a few kilometres. We live like were at home here. No problem.
GRIFFITHS: Its a holiday with profit in mind. But this season hasnt been very lucrative so far. The hunters have found mostly mammoth bones and teeth, ancient remains of no real value to them. Ivory is a money earner.
IVAN: Usually in a normal year youd get about 200,000 roubles ($US7,000) worth. If it is a good year you can earn more.
GRIFFITHS: Their one lucky break was finding a tusk jutting out of the muddy beach just downstream.
BORIS: The tusk was sticking out of the sand about 300 metres from the sea. A small edge was sticking up, so we shovelled it out.
GRIFFITHS: Was this a big mammoth?
BORIS: Well, certainly not a small one.
GRIFFITHS: Its cracked and broken. This is poor quality ivory.
BORIS: Its not a complete tusk. A complete one would probably weigh about 60 kilograms. I think it was an adult mammoth otherwise how could it carry such a burden?
GRIFFITHS: My guide, Georgy Gavrilliev is a potential buyer. He checks out the lone tusk and decides to make a bid.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: It weighs about 30 to 35 kilograms plus it is damp.
IVAN: Yeah, its damp.
GRIFFITHS: The deal is done. Georgy Gavrilliev bought the tusk for seven hundred dollars. His asking price on the international market will be about five thousand.
The nearest patch of civilisation for the ivory hunters is the former Soviet outpost of Chokurdakh. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, this town has been almost abandoned by the authorities. The remaining two thousand residents live off the land hunting and fishing. Its a harsh existence. In winter the temperature falls to fifty degrees below zero. But underground theres ancient treasure here too. Georgy Gavrilliev has tracked it down in a frozen basement. The tusk has been stored well in these sub-zero temperatures. Its a good find, an attractive piece for an overseas collector.
Outside, Georgy takes a closer look to judge its quality.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: It came out to the surface a bit too early, so it was exposed to the wind.
GRIFFITHS: Georgy Gavrillievs business success depends on his knowledge of these ancient relics and on his good relations with the men who find them.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: Okay. I am going to give you 20,000.
ALEXANDER MAKAROV: Dollars?
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: Sure! In our hard currency, roubles.
ALEXANDER MAKAROV: I want 50,000.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: Fine. Lets bargain.
GRIFFITHS: The mammoth entrepreneur has struck another deal. The hunters are pleased with the sale. Their livelihood depends on the chance discovery of an animal that died out thousands of years ago.
ALEXANDER MAKAROV: There is not much work around. You cant find work which will provide enough earnings. People live on that. Everybody looks for tusks here. Every family does it.
GRIFFITHS: The city of Yakutsk is the next stop in the come-back journey of the woolly mammoth. This is the capital of the autonomous state of Yakutia, one of Russias richest regions a frontier town buzzing with wealth from diamond and gold mining.
Now this city is on the verge of another rush one driven by the extinction of a species 10,000 years ago. Yakutsk is the centre of the mammoth ivory trade and its gateway to the rest of the world.
In a small studio in the city centre, ivory artist Konstantin Mamontov is at work. His name literally means mammoth.
KONSTANTIN MAMONTOV: Sometimes I say it was a name given to us by God. Maybe somebody there decided that I must carve mammoth ivory.
GRIFFITHS: Konstantin Mamontov has carved ivory souvenirs for nearly forty years. His pieces are sold in local shops and exported to Japan and China. They even decorate Scottish bagpipes. Lately his work has taken on a new importance a worldwide ban on elephant ivory has created new demand for the tusks of their prehistoric cousins. In the last few years the value of mammoth ivory has doubled to more than one hundred dollars a kilo.
KONSTANTIN MAMONTOV: You must work hard today. You must make original works out of mammoth ivory. Then it will bring us more money, more foreign currency. Our republic, our Russia will become wealthy.
GRIFFITHS: The souvenir market is part of a grand plan to make mammoth ivory the signature business of Yakutia. To control and encourage the trade, only licensed companies can buy and sell. Indigenous people too are allowed to cash-in on any mammoth remains they might stumble across. Gennady Alexeyev is the local governments point man on Yakutias new commodity.
GENNADY ALEXEYEV: We are creating workshops where the hunters and fishermen will bring in the tusks theyve found and will get either money or necessary products in return.
GRIFFITHS: There are other players in this prehistoric treasure hunt and theyre being left out in the cold.
DR MARK SHATTS: Winter, winter in the middle of summer.
GRIFFITHS: Dr Mark Shatts office is a freezing underground laboratory.
DR MARK SHATTS: This is a famous mammoth baby. He has two ages six months . . and 39,000 years.
GRIFFITHS: This is a copy of one of the most complete mammoths ever found. The real one is under scientific study in St Petersburg.
So how deep are we here?
DR MARK SHATTS: Twelve metres.
GRIFFITHS: From his icebox laboratory, Dr Shatts studies the permafrost, a layer of frozen soil that runs as thick as fifteen hundred metres beneath much of Siberia. This natural deepfreeze has preserved the remains of millions of mammoths. Vegetation ten thousand years old hangs out of an icy wall.
Wow.
DR MARK SHATTS: In modern times, 65% of our country is covered in permafrost. In the European part of Russia its only on the Arctic coastline. The Asian part is almost fully covered. And in Yakutia we have 95% of permafrost.
GRIFFITHS: Above ground, the citys inhabitants are captive to the permafrost too. Every house here is built on poles. If they were closer to the ground, theyd melt the frozen soil and foundations would crumble. With global warming, temperatures might be on the rise but Dr Shatts is sure it wont make any difference to Siberias underground freeze.
DR MARK SHATTS: Permafrost doesnt change as a result of human factors. Its like sticking pins in an elephants skin. The main reason is climate, the geological processes that happen. Its all very slow. Nature doesnt stand for revolutions.
GRIFFITHS: Mammoths are valuable not for what they can be sold for, but for what their ancient remains reveal about the past.
At the nearby mammoth museum, the display is impressive but researchers like Albert Protopopov are worried that science has been trampled in the rush for mammoth ivory.
ALBERT PROTOPOPOV: The tusks contain especially important information. They grow layers like wood rings the ring width depends on climate and food conditions. The conditions had an impact on the structure of the bone stratification.
GRIFFITHS: Hes somewhat comforted by a new regulation forcing companies to hand over a sample of every tusk they find for scientific analysis. But the scientists are losing out in the race to unearth mammoth remains. They just dont have enough money to compete.
ALBERT PROTOPOPOV: Yakutia has a large territory. In order to launch an expedition you have to book tens of helicopter flying hours. One flying hour costs more than 1,000 euros. Everything is expensive.
GRIFFITHS: A mammoth find is the stuff dreams are made of for the people of Chokurdakh. Nikolai, like many men in the town, struggles to find work. But hidden in his garage is a bizarre secret. Nikolai hopes hes hit the jackpot with this treasure its a skull.
NIKOLAI: It is only for a museum collection. Or maybe some billionaire will buy it and put it at home. There are some collectors who like it.
GRIFFITHS: Nikolai says hes not the only local hiding prehistoric remains in his back shed but by keeping the mammoth skull hes defying a centuries old superstition of his indigenous community. Legend has it that those who find the prehistoric animals are cursed.
NIKOLAI: People say you shouldnt look for them on purpose. You should only find them accidentally. People say it brings bad luck or something.
GRIFFITHS: So far, Nikolai hasnt seen any evidence of that but hes still waiting for a buyer.
Trader Georgy Gavrilliev, himself an indigenous person, is keeping an open mind about the legend. But it hasnt dampened his ambition to make a profit from the ancient animals.
GEORGY GAVRILLIEV: In reality it is not good to dig out something that has died. I quite agree there is a shady side. Ive heard of certain stories that people who found tusks have had some problems. I dont know whether it is connected or not.
GRIFFITHS: Superstition aside, theres a booming business in scouring for the remains of a beast that once dominated this landscape. Long after its extinction, the woolly mammoth continues to bring fortune and success. Thousands of years on, this prehistoric prey is as real as ever to modern hunters.