Exploring Mammoth Bone Accumulations In Central Europe

The discovery of large accumulations of woolly mammoth remains together with Upper Palaeolithic artefacts has fascinated both researchers and the general public since the 19th century.

Despite many years of scientific research and dispute our knowledge about these sites and the relationship between mammoths and contemporaneous Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers remains incomplete.

This project focuses on the mammoth bone accumulations found in the West Carpathian forelands and seeks to establish why they formed and their function for hunter-gatherer groups 35,000-25,000-years ago – a period of major techno-cultural and environmental change in approaching the Last Glacial Maximum.

For the first time we will study materials covering the full chronological range of this archaeological phenomenon, considering both existing collections alongside new fieldwork at the key sites of Dolní Věstonice I, Kraków Spadzista and Langmannersdorf.

Site-specific signals of human-mammoth interaction within their local palaeoenvironmental context will be used to investigate chrono-spatial changes in both mammoth populations and hunter-gatherer societies.

We will employ standardised field and laboratory protocols that utilise recent methodological and technological advances in ancient DNA research, stable isotope studies, radiometric dating, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and palaeodemographic modelling.

The resulting dataset will allow an integrated investigation of the formation of mammoth bone accumulations and produce a statistically analysable dataset expected to reveal the interactions between human and mammoth populations in Central Europe in the context of palaeoenvironmental changes.

This will have great impact not only for Upper Palaeolithic research in Central Europe, but will on a general scale also contribute to an improved understanding of human behaviour, cultural developments, and human adaptation to dynamically changing climatic and environmental conditions.