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Modern warfare is clearly changing, yet there are some things that do not change. Throughout history, soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen have learned one extremely valuable lesson relative to engagement with an opposing force. That is, if you can analyze, act and assess faster than your opponent: you will win. American and Canadian policymakers are dedicated to designing, developing and implementing a lean, team-oriented air force capable of defending the North American continent and our NATO allies in the face of unprecedented technological change, dynamic world-wide politics and internal reductions in budget and manpower.

Paleo-archives are essential for our understanding of species responses to climate warming, yet such archives are extremely rare in the Arctic. Here, we combine morphological analyses and bulk-bone metabarcoding to investigate a unique chronology of bone deposits sealed in the high-latitude Storsteinhola cave system (68°50' N 16°22' E) in Norway. This deposit dates to a period of climate warming from the end of the Late Glacial [~13 thousand calibrated years before the present (ka cal B.P.)] to the Holocene thermal maximum (~5.6 ka cal B.P.). Paleogenetic analyses allow us to exploit the 1000s of morphologically unidentifiable bone fragments resulting in a high-resolution sequence with 40 different taxa, including species not previously found here. Our record reveals borealization in both the marine and terrestrial environments above the Arctic Circle as a naturally recurring phenomenon in past periods of warming, providing fundamental insights into the ecosystem-wide responses that are ongoing today.