Lower Kolyma Research Articles

Recent Contact-Induced Morphosyntactic Changes in the Lower Kolyma Region

Abstract The paper deals with recent contact-induced changes in the grammar of two languages of the Lower Kolyma tundra, Tundra Yukaghir (TY) and Lower Kolyma Even (LKE). The morphosyntax of these languages has undergone a rather strong influence from Sakha in the course of the 20th century. The investigation focusses on the structural copying of Sakha patterns into TY and LKE, which resulted in the emergence of several new categories, in particular, the future imperative, the necessitive based on the future participle with or without proprietive marking, evaluative morphology, and contrastive markers deriving from the converbs of the copula verb. In addition, the TY system of differential object marking has changed under the influence of Sakha. These phenomena are interpreted against their historical and sociolinguistic settings, specifically, the types of multilingual situations in the region. The ramifications of the findings for the theory of language contact are also discussed.

Unadapted Foreign Language Insertions in Spoken Language of Tundra Yukaghir

The foreign language insertions in the language of the tundra Yukagirs-polyglots of the Lower Kolyma in Yakutia are considered for the first time. The relevance of the study is primarily dictated by the lack of research on contact phenomena in the Yukagir language as a whole, the decreasing number of speakers, and the importance of documenting this ancient language of Northeast Siberia. The goal of the study is to identify the functioning features of insertions in the modern spoken language of the tundra Yukagirs. The material consists of recordings of oral speech by Yukagirs in the form of polylogue, dialogue, and monologue, fragments of transcripts of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The analysis shows that insertions in Yukagir speech are realized through Yakut and Russian insertions, originating from various parts of speech of the guest languages. The author concludes the relevance of the Yakut language as the second language after the ethnic one, due to the higher frequency of Yakut elements in Yakut speech compared to Russian ones. It has been established that insertions are marked by empty and filled pauses, vocal, lexical-semantic, and paralinguistic hesitations. It is noted that the creative function is realized through the manner of using insertions by individual Yukagir polyglots in their speech.

УРОВЕННЫЙ РЕЖИМ АРКТИЧЕСКИХ РЕК ПО ДАННЫМ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЯ И СПУТНИКОВЫХ ИЗМЕРЕНИЙ

Increasing accuracy of satellite altimetry water level retrievals, especially over rivers with seasonal ice cover, motivated the application of satellite observations for improving hydrodynamic models. Altimetric water level measurements are particularly valuable in areas with limited in situ data on river bed and floodplain topography as well as under conditions of insufficient data on water discharge and water level. The MIKE11 one-dimensional hydrodynamic model was adapted for the Lower Kolyma. The model was calibrated using the water level measurements at the Kolymskoe water gauge station located in the upper part of the reach. The verification of the simulated water levels against altimetry data was performed. The comparison of simulated and satellite-derived water levels at seven locations has shown that the model reproduces well the water level variability throughout the analyzed reach (167 km). The accuracy of the water level simulations as compared to the altimetric measurements varied from 0.20 to 2.75 m (or 13-62% of the seasonal amplitude).

Reemission of inorganic pollution from permafrost? A freshwater hydrochemistry study in the lower Kolyma basin (North‐East Siberia)

AbstractPermafrost regions are under particular pressure from climate change resulting in widespread landscape changes, which impact also freshwater chemistry. We investigated a snapshot of hydrochemistry in various freshwater environments in the lower Kolyma river basin (North‐East Siberia, continuous permafrost zone) to explore the mobility of metals, metalloids and non‐metals resulting from permafrost thaw. Particular attention was focused on heavy metals as contaminants potentially released from the secondary source in the permafrozen Yedoma complex. Permafrost creeks represented the Mg‐Ca‐Na‐HCO3‐Cl‐SO4 ionic water type (with mineralisation in the range 600–800 mg L−1), while permafrost ice and thermokarst lake waters were the HCO3‐Ca‐Mg type. Multiple heavy metals (As, Cu, Co, Mn and Ni) showed much higher dissolved phase concentrations in permafrost creeks and ice than in Kolyma and its tributaries, and only in the permafrost samples and one Kolyma tributary we have detected dissolved Ti. In thermokarst lakes, several metal and metalloid dissolved concentrations increased with water depth (Fe, Mn, Ni and Zn – in both lakes; Al, Cu, K, Sb, Sr and Pb in either lake), reaching 1370 μg L−1 Cu, 4610 μg L−1 Mn, and 687 μg L−1 Zn in the bottom water layers. Permafrost‐related waters were also enriched in dissolved phosphorus (up to 512 μg L−1 in Yedoma‐fed creeks). The impact of permafrost thaw on river and lake water chemistry is a complex problem which needs to be considered both in the context of legacy permafrost shrinkage and the interference of the deepening active layer with newly deposited anthropogenic contaminants.

Code-Switching in Speech of Tundra Yukaghir: Bi- and Multilingual Repetition

The linguistic repertoire of the tundra Yukaghir-Polylinguals in Lower Kolyma, Yakutia, with a population of approximately 400 and fewer than 50 speakers, is represented by the Yukaghir, Chukchi, Even, Yakut, and Russian languages. Their speech can be characterized as mixed, including spontaneous code-switching within and between utterances. Our goal is to provide the first description of one of the common cases of code-switching — repetition. It has been established that pronouns, nouns, verbs, as well as introductory words, propositional-nominal constructions, utterances, and their parts can be duplicated. Noun duplicates in both standard and pidginized forms are the most common. Overall, most duplicates are characterized as Yukaghir-Russian. Cases of trilingual duplication are also found. There are no transitions to Chukchi and Even languages during duplication. Intra- and Interphrase realizations of duplicates with dual directionality from one language to another and / or vice versa are noted. As a result of discourse analysis, social-pragmatic functions performed by duplicates have been identified. New linguistic material, in the form of fragments from dialogues and polylogues, transcripts of which have not been previously published, is introduced into scientific circulation.

Yedoma. Part 2. Annals of geocryological research, especially radiocarbon dating and the stable-isotopes studies in the first decade of the XXI century

The first decade of the 21st century in the study of yedoma marked by the widespread use of AMS radiocarbon dating on microinclusions extracted directly from the ice wedge. These studies, together with a detailed study of stable isotope composition, were carried out at Lomonosov Moscow State University (Yu. Vasil'chuk and A. Vasil'chuk) on yedoma sections of Western Siberia, the lower Kolyma, Central Yakutia, together with specialists in the radiocarbon dating: J. van der Plicht, J.-Ch. Kim, H. Jungner, L.Sulerzhitsky. Isotope study of Yedoma sections on the right bank of the Yenisei Bay was begun (A.Vasiliev, E.Gusev, I.Streletskaya and others). During this period, active isotope and radiocarbon studies of yedoma began by the participants of the Russian-German expedition (A.Andreev, A.Chizhov, A. Derevyagin, G.Grosse, H.-W.Hubberten, L. Schirrmeister, S. Wetterich etc.) in the Anzhu Islands, the Lena Delta, and Arctic coast of Western Yakutia. In Chukotka, yedoma was studied by researches of the Anadyr station (A.Kotov). Researchers from the University of Fairbanks (M.Kanevsky, Yu.Shur, H.French, M. Bray and others) continued to study the Fox Tunnel as well as northern Alaska yedoma. Radiocarbon dating, the study of mammoth fauna, and stable isotopes were started by Canadian scientists (C. Burn, D.Froese, G. Zazula and others) on the Yukon yedoma. The study of Paleolithic sites in the yedoma sections were started of the Yana River and the New Siberian Islands (V. Pitulko, E. Pavlova etc.)

The Mesolithic Epoch at the Kolyma River Basin

The article is devoted to the history of the study of the Early Holocene antiquities of the Kolyma River basin, the archaeological research of which was started in 1946 by A. P. Okladnikov. During the first stage of work only Neolithic sites were identified. Studies in the 1970s–1980s led researchers to various opinions about the course of the historical development of this region at the turn of the Neo-Pleistocene and Early Holocene. A. Yu. Mochanov, based on the materials he studied on the Lower Kolyma, believed that in the Early Holocene there existed the Sumnagin culture, which he identified in Yakutia. N. N. Dikov singled out the Siberdik and Maltan Kolyma cultures, different from the Sumnagin culture, which, according to his scheme of the historical development of Kolyma, “prevented” Sumnagin culture from the spread both to the Kolyma and to the east of it. This dilemma of the Kolyma materials remained unresolved until recently. In the 1980s–1990s S. B. Slobodin discovered the Early Holocene Uolba culture on the Upper Kolyma with blade stemmed points, which was recorded from Yakutia to Chukotka and Kamchatka. The revision of the materials of the Multan site showed that it was not mistakenly attributed to the early Holocene. In 2017–2020, A. Yu. Zelenskaya explored the Burkhala site on the Upper Kolyma, 9,300 14С years old (10,510 cal. BP) with in situ materials associated with the Sumnagin culture. The outlined contours of the development of cultures in the early Holocene of the Kolyma basin will serve as guidelines both for practical work of identification and field studies of the sites, and for further expansion of the theoretical knowledge about the ancient cultures of the North-East of Russia.

Образ человека в нижнеколымских старожильческих говорах Якутии

Lower Kolyma sub-dialects are a monument of Russian old-timers’ culture, which is a result of interethnic and cultural contacts of the newcomers and the local population, as well as the influence of natural conditions. The processes of globalisation, integration and industrial development of the Arctic accelerate the assimilation of Russian Lower Kolyma old-timers, which actualises the issue of preserving their ethnocultural identity. The study aims to describe the structure and composition of the lexico-semantic group “Man” in the old-timers’ sub-dialects of Yakutia. The study is novel in that it is the first to present the image of man in the dialectal linguistic worldview of Lower Kolyma old-timers. Man is considered as a biological, spiritual and social being with a certain set of characteristics. As a result, it has been found that the structure of the lexico-semantic group includes physical, personal and social characteristics of man. Intra-group systemic relations are defined by the presence of various paradigmatic relations, such as word-formation synonyms, inflectional variants, phonemic doublets, antonymic and synonymic pairs, hypo-hyponymic and hyper-hyponymic relations, derivational series. The main body of the vocabulary has an all-Russian origin. Individual culture-specific words reflecting local specifics are recorded.

Forest Steppe-Like Vegetation Near Cherskiy (West Beringia) During the Early Pleistocene Olyorian Period Reconstructed Using Plant Macrofossils

The lower Kolyma region is known for rich Early Olyorian large mammal assemblages including plesiomorphic musk ox, reindeer, horse, broad-fronted moose, steppe mammoth and cave bear. Data on the vegetation in zonal habitats from the Olyorian period are, in contrast, scarce. Earlier palynological results from classical Olyorian sites indicated predominant grassland vegetation with scattered larch occurrences but are, due to limited taxonomical resolution, uncertain. Plant macrofossil data were, so far, only available from azonal, aquatic habitats. Here, we describe Olyorian palaeo-vegetation from an exposure near Cherskiy, Nizhnekolymsky District, Sakha Republic, Russia. The macrofossil-based reconstruction of palaeo-vegetation revealed the existence of an open forest steppe comprising a mosaic of sparse larch groves in a dry grassland composed of tundra steppes, degraded meadow steppes and saline meadows. In the larch groves, light demanding shrubs and dwarf shrubs such as shrub birch (Betula cf. fruticosa, B. nana ssp. exilis), raspberry (Rubus idaeus), cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), and crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) formed the understory. Ruderal pioneer plants point to open ground as result of disturbances, possibly due to the activity of large herbivores. The nitrophytic ruderal species Urtica dioica, in particular, suggests locally increased nutrient supply from animal excretions. Also, the abundant remains of Chenopodium cf. prostratum might be explained by disturbances and nutrient enrichment, but Chenopodium is also characteristic of salt accumulation in the soil owing to high evaporation under arid conditions, which are also indicated by alkali grass (Puccinellia sp.). The presence of trees and shrubs indicates interglacial-like temperature conditions but the dominance of dry grassland species and the occurrence of facultatively halophytic plants (Chenopodium prostratum, Puccinellia sp.) suggests aridity, which is more typical of cold stages. During the early Pleistocene, i.e., prior to the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition (EMPT) culminating around 900 ka ago, the duration of climate cycles was shorter and the amplitude of climate fluctuations was smaller. Ice-rich permafrost formed only after the EMPT during increasingly extreme cold stages, and, during warm stages, its thawing resulted in paludification of the active layer. Prior to the EMPT, the climate in West Beringia was constantly relatively dry, more or less moderate and more stable than thereafter. In contrast to modern tundra and northern taiga in the study region, dry habitats apparently prevailed during the time of deposition of the plant macro-remains.

Lower Kolyma multilingualism: Historical setting and sociolinguistic trends

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The region of Lower Kolyma (LK), Russia, exhibits a unique multilingual situation which involves five languages from five different families: Even (Tungusic), Yakut (Turkic), Chukchi (Chukotko-Kamchatkan), Tundra Yukaghir (Yukaghir), and Russian (Slavic, Indo-European). Our research aims to show the ongoing changes in this setting and to explain the historical background of these trends. Design/methodology/approach: Our approach combines the results of a sociolinguistic survey, published data about the history and ethnography of the region, and observed linguistic effects of language contact. Data and analysis: The sample for our sociolinguistic study includes 196 individuals, born between 1878 and 1996. To assess the patterns of multilingualism we use two parameters: the number of acquired languages and the composition of the linguistic repertoires. To model the linguistic situation in the 20th century, an average life span parameter is used. Findings/conclusions: We demonstrate that in 1940 to 1980 it was most common for LK residents to use all languages of the region. Partly, at least, this was a consequence of the introduction of boarding schools, which became an additional domain for interethnic communication. In recent decades we observe a tendency for a shift to Russian with a concomitant decrease in speakers of the minority languages. Originality: We use an approach of retrospective interviews which allows us to cover a large time period and to provide an overview of changes in the multilingual setting during the 20th century. Thus, even though multilingualism in this area has already been discussed by Vakhtin, the methodological approach is different. Significance/implications: The paper contributes to the field of sociolinguistics, presenting a new case study of multilingualism from an area of Siberia which is understudied in this regard.

The River Alazeya: Shifting Socio-Ecological Systems Connected to a Northeastern Siberian River

One of the most remote Arctic locations, Andryushkino village of Yukaghir and Even peoples is located on the shore of the river Alazeya in northeastern Siberia, in the Lower Kolyma Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, Russia. The community is at the nexus of large-scale Arctic social and climate change resulting from economic shifts, permafrost melt events, and high temperatures. In this study, we approach Indigenous knowledge of climate impacts to water by investigating the role of the river Alazeya, which has enabled human life to thrive, given rise to the Indigenous governance of landscapes in the past, and today serves most of the Indigenous peoples in the region for their culture, food security, and well-being. To do this, we offer an ambitious system-change analysis of the socio-ecological context of the river basin and community by exploring oral histories recorded in the community between 2005 and 2020, combining them with relevant scientific literature and weather data from Russian measurement stations to detect and point to key messages of impacts. Our results confirm that the speed and extent of climate warming have increased since 1985. The flood event of 2007 in the village has especially been seen as a major climate change-induced catastrophe. We focus on the drivers of change from local history to present. We also investigate alternatives for future development of resilience and support for the Yukaghir culture, traditional ways of life, and language.

Geochemical composition of Holocene and Late Pleistocene ice wedges in the yedoma of Stanchikovsky Yar and near the Chersky town, Northern Yakutia

The subject of this research is the Late Pleistocene and Holocene ice wedges exposed near Chersky settlement, lower Kolyma River, and in the yedoma strata of the Stanchikovsky Yar on the Maly Anyuy River. In the yedoma of the Stanchikovsky Yar, multi-tiered syngenetic ice wedges were exposed at different levels – from 10 to 35 m above river level. Ice wedge in the lower tier was sampled in detail. In the yedoma strata near Chersky relatively small fragments of ice wedges up to 1.5 m wide and up to 2 m high were exposed. 1.5-2 km from Chersky within the lacusrtine-paludal depression Holocene ice wedges were exposed. Ice wedges in these three sections was sampled to clarify the geochemical conditions of their formation. It is shown that concentration of Na+, K+, Mg2+, Cl- and SO42- in Holocene and Late Pleistocene ice wedges is very low and mean values do not exceed 5 mg/L. The highest values were obtained for Ca2+, which corresponds to the predominance of this ion in the modern snow of Yakutia and indicates that ice wedges were formed mainly from melted snow. Rather high values of NO3-, reaching 14-27 mg/L, are quite likely due to the swampy environment within polygonal landscapes, where organic matter of both plant and animal origin is decomposed. For comparison, in the water of the Kolyma and Maly Anyu rivers, concentration of nitrates is quite low and does not exceed 0.3 mg/L.

Multilingualism in the Lower Kolyma Region

Multilingualism in the Lower Kolyma Region

Particulate Organic Matter Dynamics in a Permafrost Headwater Stream and the Kolyma River Mainstem.

Ongoing rapid arctic warming leads to extensive permafrost thaw, which in turn increases the hydrologic connectivity of the landscape by opening up subsurface flow paths. Suspended particulate organic matter (POM) has proven useful to trace permafrost thaw signals in arctic rivers, which may experience higher organic matter loads in the future due to expansion and increasing intensity of thaw processes such as thermokarst and river bank erosion. Here we focus on the Kolyma River watershed in Northeast Siberia, the world's largest watershed entirely underlain by continuous permafrost. To evaluate and characterize the present‐day fluvial release of POM from permafrost thaw, we collected water samples every 4–7 days during the 4‐month open water season in 2013 and 2015 from the lower Kolyma River mainstem and from a small nearby headwater stream (Y3) draining an area completely underlain by Yedoma permafrost (Pleistocene ice‐ and organic‐rich deposits). Concentrations of particulate organic carbon generally followed the hydrograph with the highest concentrations during the spring flood in late May/early June. For the Kolyma River, concentrations of dissolved organic carbon showed a similar behavior, in contrast to the headwater stream, where dissolved organic carbon values were generally higher and particulate organic carbon concentrations lower than for Kolyma. Carbon isotope analysis (δ13C, Δ14C) suggested Kolyma‐POM to stem from both contemporary and older permafrost sources, while Y3‐POM was more strongly influenced by in‐stream production and recent vegetation. Lipid biomarker concentrations (high‐molecular‐weight n‐alkanoic acids and n‐alkanes) did not display clear seasonal patterns, yet implied Y3‐POM to be more degraded than Kolyma‐POM.

The characteristics of a relic steppe of Northeast Asia: refuges of the Pleistocene Mammoth steppe (an example from the Lower Kolyma area)

An ecosystem of a relic petrophytic steppe was studied in the Lower Kolyma River region. The soils of the steppe area significantly differed from those of the surrounding open larch forests in the following features: the presence of humus-accumulative horizons with a high content of roots; low moisture content; high heat supply; an extremely contrasting temperature regime; neutral reaction; decreased potential acidity; higher humification of organic matter; accumulation of exchangeable bases, soluble salts and organic nitrogen; and the presence of carbonate neoformations in the form of cutans on pebbly units. They also had a high microorganism saturation of the soil profile, a high share of actinomycetes in the microbial community, as is typical for arid soils, and a shift in the ratio of potential enzyme activities toward oxidoreductases, which reflects a deeper destruction of plant residues and more intensive humus formation. The petrophytic steppe had high bioproductivity. The growth rate of the aboveground phytomass (ANP) was closer to the true steppes of Central Asia than to the zonal tundras of the Arctic and Subarctic; such communities can serve as models for paleoreconstructions and study of the Late Pleistocene cold steppes - mammoth fauna large grazing mammals habitats.

Попытка датировки устного народного творчества нижнеколымских юкагиров с особым учётом миграционных данных

Попытка датировки устного народного творчества нижнеколымских юкагиров с особым учётом миграционных данных

ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА ЛЕКСИКО-СЕМАНТИЧЕСКИХ ГРУПП РУСИЗМОВ В ЯЗЫКЕ ТУНДРОВЫХ ЮКАГИРОВ: ТЕХНИКА


 
 
 The Yukaghirs is one of the ancient aboriginal peoples of the north- eastern Siberia. Nowadays there are two local Yukaghir groups. The Tundra Yukagirs live in Lower Kolyma river and the Forest Yukaghirs dwell in Upper Kolyma. Their languages are common in sintax, but different in lexicon and phonetics as a result of historic established contacts with other newcomers. The paper is devoted to lexical transfer as a result of the language contacts as one of the most actual in the modern linguistics and purely studied themes in Yukagir studies. According to last research of the foreign lexicon in Yukaghir there is appr. 800 Russian words in Tundra Yukaghir, of which 170 entered via Yakut. The author classifies, characterizes and analyzes the direct and indirect Russian words within the group titled as “Technics” from functional and formal assimilative points of view.
 
 

Chloroplast and mitochondrial genetic variation of larches at the Siberian tundra-taiga ecotone revealed by de novo assembly.

Larix populations at the tundra-taiga ecotone in northern Siberia are highly under-represented in population genetic studies, possibly due to the remoteness of these regions that can only be accessed at extraordinary expense. The genetic signatures of populations in these boundary regions are therefore largely unknown. We aim to generate organelle reference genomes for the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that can be used for paleogenetic studies. We present 19 complete chloroplast genomes and mitochondrial genomic sequences of larches from the southern lowlands of the Taymyr Peninsula (northernmost range of Larix gmelinii (Rupr.) Kuzen.), the lower Omoloy River, and the lower Kolyma River (both in the range of Larix cajanderi Mayr). The genomic data reveal 84 chloroplast SNPs and 213 putatively mitochondrial SNPs. Parsimony-based chloroplast haplotype networks show no spatial structure of individuals from different geographic origins, while the mitochondrial haplotype network shows at least a slight spatial structure with haplotypes from the Omoloy and Kolyma populations being more closely related to each other than to most of the haplotypes from the Taymyr populations. Whole genome alignments with publicly available complete chloroplast genomes of different Larix species show that among official plant barcodes only the rcbL gene contains sufficient polymorphisms, but has to be sequenced completely to distinguish the different provenances. We provide 8 novel mitochondrial SNPs that are putatively diagnostic for the separation of L. gmelinii and L. cajanderi, while 4 chloroplast SNPs have the potential to distinguish the L. gmelinii/L. cajanderi group from other Larix species. Our organelle references can be used for a targeted primer and probe design allowing the generation of short amplicons. This is particularly important with regard to future investigations of, for example, the biogeographic history of Larix by screening ancient sedimentary DNA of Larix.

Зимние палеотемпературы воздуха в низовьях Колымы 30–12 тысяч лет назад по результатам изучения изотопного состава едомы Плахинского Яра

Зимние палеотемпературы воздуха в низовьях Колымы 30–12 тысяч лет назад по результатам изучения изотопного состава едомы Плахинского Яра

ЮКАГИРСКИЕ ЗАИМСТВОВАНИЯ В НИЖНЕКОЛЫМСКОМ ГОВОРЕ ЭВЕНСКОГО ЯЗЫКА

The article describes Yukaghir borrowings in the Lower Kolyma dialect of the Even language, which have not been previously studied by specialists in Even philology. The author introduces new linguistic material on Yukaghir borrowings, in particular from its tundra dialect, into scientific use. The study is based on analyzing Yukaghir borrowings in the language of the Lower Kolyma Evens, this process is represented at all linguistic levels and is characterized by a number of specific features. The study of Yukaghir borrowings is conducted on the basis of the author’s field material gathered in the villages Andryushkino and Kolymskoye of the Lower Kolyma ulus of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) (2013-2015).