Summer in Siberia. Ahhhh, doesn’t it sound delightful?
Okay, maybe relaxing on the beach in Cancun, Mexico or touring the Mediterranean has a little more allure. But for archaeologist Robert Ackerman and two of his graduate students, a few weeks in Siberia promise academic challenge, professional opportunities, a chance to witness social changes in a different country, and some great fishing in pristine streams. Hey, life’s not all books and research!
Ackerman, internationally known for his research on the movement of prehistoric people from Asia into North America, left for the Chita District of Siberia, east of Lake Baikal on May 17, to launch a new leg of his studies. Accompanying him are doctoral students Ian Buvit and Karisa Terry. The primary focus of this trip will be to make arrangements for Buvit and Terry to do future research projects focusing on the late Upper Paleolithic or Stone Age prehistory of the region.
The trio will be meeting with academic and archaeological leaders from the Russia Academy of Science, as well as Russian universities and research institutes, gathering insights on where future research might be most productive and what the students might focus on for their dissertation projects.
“For about 10 to 12 days, we will be on the road traveling to various archaeological sites within about 90 miles of Chita, looking for prehistoric artifacts and collecting soil samples that we can bring back for radioactive carbon dating,” said Ackerman.
Chita and Lake Baikal are located just north of the Mongolian border. To view this area on a map, click on the following live links:
Ackerman is no newcomer to Siberia and Russia, having traveled there nine times since 1959. Over the years, Ackerman has discovered various artifacts, including “microblades” and tools used by prehistoric hunter-gatherers dating back 10,000 years.
Microblades are finger-shaped blades, about 1 – 2 inches long, cut from rocks. Similar blades have been found in other areas of Europe and Asia dating back as far as 35,000 years.
Archaeologists believe the blades were used in combination with bones to form spears, knives and hunting tools. The discovery and dating of these items help archaeologists trace the movement of tribes from Europe and Asia to North America.
A member of the WSU anthropology faculty since 1961, Ackerman has traveled to Russia, Siberia, Japan, Korea and China to attend scientific conferences and to study archaeological collections from Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites. He also has led many archaeological digs in Alaska that resulted in the discovery of human occupation less than 10,000 years ago.
In 1999, he received the Alaska Anthropological Association Career Achievement Award for research that has taken him to many areas of Alaska, as well as to Siberia, the Russian Far East, Korea and China.
Over the years, Ackerman said he has witnessed huge changes in modern Russian society.
“You have to realize that my first trip in 1959 came shortly after the Joseph Stalin’s death and Nakita Kruschev’s rise to power,” he said. “People were still feeling the aftereffects of World War II and Stalin, and they were afraid to talk to foreigners. You could see the fear in their eyes, but you could also tell that they wanted to talk to you.
“Colorful clothing, fashions and cosmetics were simply not seen. Nearly all clothing was black.
“Now, a lot of the people who were alive in 1959 are gone,” he said. “Today’s citizens are not afraid to practice religion, which you never would have seen in 1959. The young people like jazz and disco music, the clothing is very colorful, and the people are not afraid to talk with you.”
And, Ackerman expects to see more changes. The last time he was in Siberia was 1990, when he spent two weeks in the Altai Mountains, looking at Mousterian culture cave sites, and later in Vladivostok.
Ackerman said he packed and repacked his luggage several times to lighten the weight, but one of the essentials that made the cut was a collapsible rod and spinning reel, in hopes that he will have an opportunity to use it.
“Up in this area, the fish have not been heavily impacted and so you don’t have to tiptoe through the violets like you do for the little scaredy-cat trout that we have here,” he comments. “So, you can take a big old spoon (fishing lure) and go #kawoosh# and a fish about this size (holding his hands apart about 24 inches) half swallows it. It#s that kind of fishing.”
And it’s a side benefit during field research, he said. “It sure helps when you’re eating canned food.”
Nearby Lake Baikal is enormous, about 636 km long and about 80 km wide. It holds 20 percent of the earth’s fresh water and harbors more endemic species of plants and animals than any other lake in the world. It is adjacent to 336 rivers and streams and holds fifty species of fish, including bullhead, sturgeon and omul.
As a point of comparison, if you were to drain Lake Baikal, it would take the Great Lakes of the United States: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario to refill the empty basin. At 1,620 meters, nearly a mile deep, it is also the world’s deepest lake.
Happy fishing, professor!
