Mammoth hunting strategies during the Late Gravettian in Central Europe as determined from case studies of Milovice I (Czech Republic) and Kraków Spadzista (Poland)

Abstract

This paper compares lithic and faunal assemblages from Milovice (Czech Republic) and Kraków Spadzista (Poland) archaeological sites, with the aim of reconstructing temporal variations and patterning in Gravettian hunting of Mammuthus primigenius (woolly mammoth) in Central Europe. Milovice I was occupied ∼1 ky earlier than Kraków Spadzista, and is contemporaneous with Willendorf-Kostienkan sites. It is dated between 30.1 and 29.2 ka cal BP, overlapping the end of the GS 5.1 stadial in the Greenland ice core paleoclimatic record; the site was formed during cold climatic conditions. Radiocarbon dates from Kraków Spadzista indicate the site was occupied between 28.6 and 27 ka cal BP, spanning periods of significant climate instability through the GI 4 interstadial, GS 4 stadial, and the short interstadial GI 3. The two sites have fundamental differences in armature tool kits, such as raw materials and tool sizes. The hunter-gatherers at both sites had a mammoth-hunting focus, although they used different sized lithic weapon tips for hunting and thus probably had different strategies for procuring prey. The mammoth mortality profiles are significantly different at the two sites. At Milovice I, mid-life adults dominate the profile, while juveniles greatly dominate at Kraków Spadzista. We suggest that climatically mediated differences in mammoth migratory behavior, feeding behavior, population sizes, and demography influenced Gravettian people to manufacture and use different sizes of projectile points and to significantly increase the number of tool types during the most climatically unstable periods; these changes reflected tactical changes in Late Gravettian subsistence hunting in East-Central Europe.