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ENVIRONMENTAL REFLECTIONS OF NATIVE PEOPLES- HEALTH IN THE SUB-ARCTIC RUSSIA BASED ON MICRO-ELEMENTS

Jiřı́ Chlachula

Abstract

Natural environment plays the principal role in the physical as well as socio-cultural adjustment of past and present human populations as evidenced by anthropological and material culture records. This is well-observed particularly among the aboriginal nations occupying intermittently pristine northern territories absent of major human migrations, ethnical gene-flows and associated historical inter-cultural exchanges. Specific natural factors linked to regional climate and geography, persisting for a certain time span, may significantly affect the ways of adaptations among the northern communities as attested by the (pre-)historic archaeological and ethnographical archives. Biological changes and cultural accommodation related to and triggered by (sub-)recent natural transformations are also reflected in the human organism/peoples? health. This environmentally-imposed mechanism is considered to modify the morpho-functional biological characteristics of the northern (sub-)Arctic aboriginal/native people of Siberia and the extreme North-East Asia, responding to the presently acting natural shifts and the industrial ecology impacts. The area of the northern Siberia provides a unique opportunity for actualistic studies and multi-proxy assessment of these processes currently observed among the indigenous nations in respect to the geographical isolation of their natural settlement habitat and the specific environmental (climatic, relief and biotic) conditions. Trace elements in human tissue represent a unique and most informative tool for evaluation of an overall health status of a particular population group and detect potential negative/positive trends in the present-day geo-environmental adaptations. The documented regional and ethnic differences in the (bio-)microelement concentration values among the studied native residents of the (sub-)Arctic Russia (the Khanty-Mansiyskiy District, the Yamalo-Nenetskiy District, the Taimyr District and the Chukotka/Magadan District) are interpreted to reflect the present ecology pressure, but also the particularity of the local biogeochemical profiles and a specific, genetically determined mineral metabolism. Anthropogenically-triggered affects of the high-Arctic pollution by various technogene toxic wastes causing contamination of the traditional food resources together with ongoing permafrost degradation and a long-term stress to the human organism due to severe, strongly continental conditions with deficiency of diversity of diet and healthy nutrition, among other, are seen as the main negative factors. The present investigation results suggest that the micro-element shifts in human organism occur due to the current changes in habitation environments, specific ethnic biological predispositions in mineral element metabolism and a long-term physical exposure to ecologically polluted settings.

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