"Last year someone was paid 800,000 roubles [$37,000] for a mammoth head with two tusks in great condition," Vatagin said. A brawny 45-year-old, Vatagin has a network of helpers: the fishermen and reindeer-herders of the tiny Yukagir ethnic group, whose numbers have dwindled to about 800.

"I must have earned the respect of the Yukagir. Their shamans convened a council and decided to name me a Yukagir." He is now Yukagir No. 456. These tribesmen are his "finders", fanning out across the vast emptiness of the tundra seeking valuable artefacts. At regular intervals, Vatagin flies by helicopter to the main Yukagir settlement, Andryushkino, about 200 kilometres west of the local centre of Chersky, to view the merchandise.

Prehistoric bones are not very hard to find, he says. The permafrost is thawing and breaking up so rapidly that in certain places in the tundra bones poke out through the soil every few metres. Some just lie on the surface. Vatagin pays between $10 and $190 for a kilogram of mammoth bones. But it takes a keen eye and local knowledge to find the really valuable stuff.

Tusks, sometimes curled almost into a circle and reaching up to five metres in length, are the most prized finds. A pair of good tusks is a rarity; two tusks and a well-preserved skull can be worth a fortune. "If he is lucky, a local can earn 200,000 roubles in just one day," said Vatagin, who wears a massive silver ring with a mammoth's head engraved into it. "To earn this money, he would otherwise have to toil for a year."

But for Vatagin it is not just about money. He himself dives into the ice-cold local rivers to look for relics. The cash he pays the Yukagir tribesmen gives them a living. Many of the bones retrieved by Vatagin and his adopted tribe end up at the Ice Age Museum in Moscow. The museum makes no secret that scientific discovery goes hand-in-glove with business interests.

Museum official Alexander Svalov has on one of his fingers a ring identical to the one won worn by Vatagin. The ring is the symbol of the National Alliance, a close-knit business run by entrepreneur Fyodor Shidlovsky. The company runs the museum, and holds government licences allowing it to excavate and export prehistoric relics. Svalov, who is the chief executive of National Alliance, says a well-preserved tusk can sell to private collectors for up to $24,000, while a reconstructed mammoth skeleton can fetch between $180,000 and $300,000.

The bones make their way into museums in places such as the United States and South Korea. Now promising new markets are opening up in emerging economies such asChina too. "Developing nations are now displaying huge interest in mammoths," says Svalov. "Their economies are growing, they have cash and are starting to develop their museums."



The permafrost thaw affects those rare outposts where humans have settled.



In Chersky, a town of 3000 people, apartment blocks have cracks running through their walls as the earth beneath them subsides. Many have been demolished as unsafe.



Sergei Davydov, a 52-year-old scientist, does not sell the bones he collects. He keeps them in his home in Chersky to study the effects of climate change, but also because they fascinate him.

"This tooth has an unusual bump here. The mammoth suffered from a terrible toothache. We can only imagine how he must have roared," says Davydov, tenderly rubbing a black tooth the size of a large shoe. He displays his other finds: a mammoth's giant thigh bones, the horns of a woolly rhino, the jaws of an ancient horse and a cave lion's skull. Bison skulls crowned with sharp horns decorate the interior of his cosy wooden house. Davydov acknowledges that rising temperatures in Siberia have been a boon for bone collectors. "As the permafrost thaws, we obtain yet more objects for study," he says.

But then he reflects: "From the point of view of humanity, it would have been better if this had never happened.". Reuters