Yukaghir

Mr. Shadrin, the Yukaghir community leader, described the members of his Indigenous group — scattered in small villages across the vast region — as overwhelmingly supportive of the Kremlin.

The Yukaghir were not an exotic tribe living in utter isolation.

That encounter was fresh in his mind when, back in Denmark, Dr. Willerslev learned that some scientists were extracting DNA from fossil mummies, a technique that might help explain the history of people like the Yukaghir.

An old man, covered in scars from hunting bears in his youth, led them to a Yukaghir village.

They would make contact with a mysterious group of people called the Yukaghir, who supposedly lived on nothing but elk and moose.