Identifying the hunter-gatherer systems behind associated mammoth bone beds and mammoth bone dwellings

Abstract

Mammoth bone beds associated with Palaeolithic settlements were reported in the Pavlovian, the Eastern Gravettian, and the Mezinian. Several points of method are posed:- How to identify and differentiate without ambiguity the remains of mammoth bone beds from the remains of dwelling structures built in part from the bones of these bone beds?- How to study the processes that are at the origin of the bone bed deposits and the processes of human exploitation of these deposits?- How to identify the origin of these accumulations, unique, multiple or continuous, either due to geological changes, deaths of natural origin (famine, storm) or human activity (hunting, trapping)?This paper is particularly involved in the study of cases, more systematic than exceptional, of accumulations that are associated with a settlement. It provides a quantitative method to distinguish the mammoth bone beds from the dwelling structures, and to identify and characterize the various processes behind the systems of bone beds and artefacts discovered by the archaeologists.