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this paper is based on field data obtained during short visits to a newly formed permafrost feature in a form of relatively narrow, deep crater. excluding impossible and improbable versions of the crater's development, the authors conclude that it originated from warmer ground temperatures and an increase in unfrozen water content, leading to an increase in pressure from gas emissions from permafrost and ground ice. this conclusion is also supported by known processes in the palaeo-geography of yamal lakes and recent studies of gas-hydrate behavior and subsea processes in gas-bearing provinces.

The study of reindeer domestication provides a unique opportunity to examine how domestication involves more than bodily changes in animals produced through selection. Domestication requires enskilment among humans and animals, and this process of pragmatic learning is dependent on specific forms of material culture. Particularly with the domestication of working animals, the use of such material culture may predate phenotypic and genetic changes produced through selective breeding. The Iamal region of Arctic Siberia is generating an increasingly diverse set of archaeological evidence for reindeer domestication that evidences these processes. Three early sites, Ust'-Polui, Tiutei-Sale I, and Iarte VI, contain artifacts proposed to be parts of headgear worn by transport reindeer, the earliest dating to just over 2000 years ago. Contemporary Nenets reindeer herders scrutinized replicas of these archaeological objects, and comparisons with historic reindeer harness parts from Arctic Russia were also made. Nenets consistently interpreted barbed L-shaped antler pieces from Iamal as headgear parts for training young reindeer in pulling sleds. Some types of swivels were also interpreted as transport reindeer headgear. Based on these consultations with Nenets and observations of their ongoing reindeer domestication practices, we argue that material things such as headgear, harnesses, and sleds are not merely technological means of using or controlling reindeer in transportation but

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