The very term, "mammoth", came
from one of the indigenous languages of the Finno-Urgic family
"Mammoth means
the underground mole.
It's an underground creature
but of a different species.
The mammoth is probably the best
example which challenges the distinction between
between the living and extinct animals.
 
For indigenous people who deal with
the Arctic environment
from time to time they come across
bits and pieces of extinct animals, like the mammoth.
 
and they understand
the mammoth as rather a living animal.
they can find the whole corpse
full of meat, blood, bones. Of course their immediate
reaction from their point of view
would be, "OK, this is a living animal
but living
under the ground.
The mammoth is a very special animal for the
human history as well since we used to share
the one geological era, if you will, or
the period of time in the history
especially in the early  stage. And our
common ancestors were hunters.
And from that perspective, the mammoth
is not only part of the paleontological and geological history  of the planet
but it's also part of human history.
The mammoth and the mammoth studies allows us to
reformulate the very concept of time.
There is no such thing as linear time, we are
constantly involved in being the
object and subject of making time
And the mammoth is the best example of this.
Since the mid 18th century,
 
Arctic Siberia had been extremely important as an area
for mammoth hunting.
People from the mainland went to
the Arctic islands and
they discovered
the mammoth bones which were  like the currency -
for
the Arctic economy.
They did their business with the mammoth, and in some parts
of Siberia, like Yakutsk
this place is still very famous for the mammoth
business, for mammoth hunting.
And during the Cold War, the mammoth played
a very important role for establishing contact
across the Bering Strait
or between the Soviet Union and Europe.
And in many places, the Soviet
Academy of Science organized exhibitions of the mammoth
Official newspapers like Pravda, Isvestia and others
in the Soviet Union
they gave the reports of the  about the success of those.
The mammoth was kind of a living diplomat, they managed to
deliver to London or New York
and the mammoth in a strange way
had agency, had capacity to
change the environment, to melt the ice
between the two superpowers.
We are returning to the
indigenous understanding of the environment,
the environment is alive, history is alive. History
is always under your feet.
If we imagine the world as a living universe, as
a living entity,
as living matter. Then we immediately
take into account our responsibility
for this world. I am responsible
for living matters around myself. Around me.
