Mammoth Hunting Research Articles

The Epigravettian Site of Yudinovo, Russia: Mammoth Bone Structures as Ritualised Middens

ABSTRACT We present here the results of a study of woolly mammoth remains from Yudinovo (Bryansk oblast, Russia) and argue for a revised interpretation of Late Upper Palaeolithic mammoth bone structures in Eastern Europe. Five distinct mammoth bone accumulations have been identified in the main (lower) archaeological layer of Yudinovo, dated to ca. 14.9–14.5 14C kya BP (ca. 18.2–17.6 kya cal BP). Taphonomic and zooarchaeological analyses have shown that the mammoth remains found at Yudinovo derive from the butchery of animal carcasses, supporting the hypothesis of mammoth hunting during the Upper Palaeolithic. Our analyses indicate that hunting of both adult and young mammoths took place. Yudinovo was occupied at intervals during both the cold and warm periods of the year, and evidence for various activities is found at the site. The most recently excavated mammoth bone structure was built from a large number of bones, and had a circular or oval form, 4–9.5 m in diameter. The mammoth bone structures have traditionally been interpreted as the remains of dwellings, but we interpret them instead as ritualised middens. Such middens were probably an important part of the socio-symbolic systems of the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers who built them.

Сезонная динамика охоты на мамонта: почему, когда, как

Introduction. Mammoth hunting is usually considered permanent. However, herds of mammoths and lonely male performed annual submeridional seasonal migrations with a length of up to 500- 600 km. Therefore, due to the relative settled population in the upper paleolithic, the annual period of mammoth hunting was in this case very brief, fitting in two short intervals in the spring and autumn - the passage of the valley controlled by the hunters of several family groups. Materials and methods. According to M. V. Sablin, about the age of killing the mammoth's cubs, two seasons of hunting in the Middle Desna are reconstructed for the sites of Yudinovo and Eliseevichi, approximately in May and October. Results. Hunting did not have the nature of the kill of a whole herd or its significant part. Only separate animals were seized. If we allow the similarity of hunting strategies, this indirectly confirms the isotopic analysis of the mammoth bones in the parking lots of hunters on the large proboscidean (Clovis) in North America. They could beat the beast on the ―established‖ migration path, possibly on a migration trek across the river. The seasonal rhythm of the Eastern Magdalenian hunters in the mammoth was inherited in our opinion for the hunters of reindeer in the final Paleolithic, genetically connected with the Eastern Magdalen. Conclusion. The author comes to the conclusion that with the onset of sharp climatic fluctuations and a hydrological catastrophe associated with the melting of permafrost and the concomitant degradation of the feeding landscape and the possibilities of free movement along it, the migration routes of mammoth herds should have shifted noticeably to the north, following the retreating periglacial zone. Following the mammoths, a population specialized in hunting these animals should have followed. The descendants of this population – reindeer hunters of the final Paleolithic - inherited the seasonal rhythm and strategy of the previous mammoth hunt, transferring them to a new migrating hunting object. Their spring and autumn settlements also formed along the migration routes of reindeer, where many crossed large rivers during their migrations to winter and summer pastures.

Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Woolly mammoth tusk hunting has become a black-market industry in the Siberian region of Yakutia, where thawing permafrost due to climate change is revealing the bodies of thousands of mammoths. They are often in a state of incredible preservation, and their accompanying tusks can be sold to China where they are carved into ornaments as a marker of status. Alongside tusk hunting, another potential industry has emerged: de-extinction. Many of the mammoths found on the tundra have potentially viable DNA that might be used to resurrect a mammoth through genetic technology. Mammoth de-extinction is a cryopolitical process – a focus on the preservation and production of life at a genetic level through cold storage. 'Cryobanks' have emerged as a way to safeguard endangered and extinct species' genetic material, and forms part of a turn towards pre-empting conservation crises during what some scholars are calling the 'sixth great extinction.' The mammoth's body is broken down into pieces – tusks form luxury commodity chains, whilst flesh and blood is parceled into frozen genes and cells. The mammoth in the freezer is indicative of a reorganization of cold life in a warming world, with the specific cryopolitics found in the cryobank an attempt at extending human control over planetary processes that are now seemingly out of control. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken at the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, Siberia, and at the Natural History Museum's cryobank in London, I follow the mammoth from permafrost, to freezer, to back outside, and consider how her de-extinction is a response to a particular sort of future crisis –that of our own extinction.

The earliest direct evidence of mammoth hunting in Central Europe – The Kraków Spadzista site (Poland)

The oldest unequivocal evidence of mammoth hunting in prehistoric Central Europe has been found in the Gravettian archaeological site Kraków Spadzista (Poland). The site contains thousands of lithic artifacts and the remains of >100 woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), with radiocarbon dates clustering ∼25–24 ka uncal BP. A fragment of a flint shouldered point is embedded in a mammoth rib, and more than 50% of the site's flint shouldered points and backed blades bear diagnostic traces of hafting and impact damage from use as spear tips. Additional support for mammoth killing is the mortality profile of 112 mammoths from the site: some age groups may have been depleted due to recurring heavy hunting by humans during periods of environmental stress. The evidence for intensive human hunting could portend a development thousands of years later, at the end of the Pleistocene, when climate-caused habitat changes were more extreme, and, in combination with opportunistic human hunting, may have led to woolly mammoth extinction.

Elephant and Mammoth Hunting during the Paleolithic: A Review of the Relevant Archaeological, Ethnographic and Ethno-Historical Records

Proboscideans and humans have shared habitats across the Old and New Worlds for hundreds of thousands of years. Proboscideans were included in the human diet starting from the Lower Paleolithic period and until the final stages of the Pleistocene. However, the question of how prehistoric people acquired proboscideans remains unresolved. Moreover, the effect of proboscidean hunting on the eventual extinction of these mega-herbivores was never seriously evaluated, probably because of the lack of acquaintance with the plethora of information available regarding proboscidean hunting by humans. The aim of this paper is to bridge this gap and bring to light the data available in order to estimate the extent and procedures of elephant and mammoth hunting by humans during the Quaternary. This study examines the archaeological evidence of proboscidean hunting during Paleolithic times, and provides a review of ethnographic and ethno-historical accounts, demonstrating a wide range of traditional elephant-hunting strategies. We also discuss the rituals accompanying elephant hunting among contemporary hunter-gatherers, further stressing the importance of elephants among hunter-gatherers. Based on the gathered data, we suggest that early humans possessed the necessary abilities to actively and regularly hunt proboscideans; and performed this unique and challenging task at will.

FOLSOM MAMMOTH HUNTERS? THE TERMINAL PLEISTOCENE ASSEMBLAGE FROM OWL CAVE (10BV30), WASDEN SITE, IDAHO

The 1960s and 1970s excavations at Owl Cave (10BV30) recovered mammoth bone and Folsom-like points from the same strata, suggesting evidence for a post-Clovis mammoth kill. However, a synthesis of the excavation data was never published, and the locality has since been purged from the roster of sites with human/extinct megafauna associations. Here, we present dates on bone from the oldest stratum, review provenience data, conduct a bone-surface modification study, and present the results of a protein-residue analysis. Our study fails to make the case for mammoth hunting by Folsom peoples. Although two of the point fragments tested positive for horse or elephant protein, recent AMS dates indicate that all of the mammoth remains predate Folsom, and horse remains are absent from the Owl Cave collection. Further, no unambiguously cultural surface modifications were identified on any of the mammoth remains. Given the available data, the Owl Cave deposits are most parsimoniously read as containing a Folsom-age occupation in a buried context, the first of its kind in the desert West, but one nonetheless part of a palimpsest of terminal Pleistocene materials.

Mammoth hunting – Impact traces on backed implements from a mammoth bone accumulation at Kraków Spadzista (southern Poland)

This article presents the results of use-wear analysis of the backed implements (shouldered points and backed blades) discovered at Kraków Spadzista, trench B + B1. Of the 197 examined tools, 113 specimens (55%) bear traces of use. In this group, 55 artefacts show a complete set of clear, characteristic impact traces and could be interpreted as the flint parts of thrown weapons. They were used in mammoth hunting at the Kraków Spadzista site 24 thousand years ago. The hafting method can be identified on the basis of the direction of linear traces and impact negatives. Most of these artefacts were placed at the top of wooden or bone shaft. Only single specimens were attached laterally.

Hunters of the giants: Woolly mammoth hunting during the Gravettian in Central Europe

Between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago, Gravettian hunter-gatherers spread across most of Europe. In Central Europe, large and important sites have been discovered, especially those in the Czech Republic at the base of the Pavlovské (Palava) Hills, and in southern Poland. The remains of different mammalian carnivores and herbivores accumulated in bone assemblages at these Gravettian sites. Mammoth bones and teeth are significant components in them. Mammoths certainly played a significant role in the lifetime of the Central European societies of Gravettian hunter-gatherers. These Pleistocene giants provided not only food, but also raw materials for tools and the production of ornaments. The presence of the remains of many mammoths shows that the Gravettian people were specialized in the hunting of these animals.

Not one but two mammoth hunting strategies in the Gravettian of the Pavlov Hills area (southern Moravia)

In southern Moravia (Czech Republic), the Gravettian groups based part of their economic system on mammoth exploitation between 29 and 24,000 uncal. BP. The origin of mammoth bone accumulations at several sites of this area has been debated since the discovery of Předmosti in the middle of the 19th century. Study of the Milovice faunal remains demonstrated that hunting was the main, if not the only, procurement pattern. Considering the published data from Pavlov I (Moravia) and the reconstructed age profiles based on mammoth teeth, we suggest the proboscidean was hunted at that site. More unexpectedly, two hunting strategies have been identified in the Pavlov Hills area: one affecting subadults and adults, and the second one affecting young and subadult individuals. Chronology and the physical condition of the mammoth population are not convincing arguments to explain such a difference. Human behaviour was involved, and we suggest economic goals related to mammoth resources were the reasons for such a hunting selection. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether season or human group identity could have produced this behaviour.

Evidence from the Yana Palaeolithic site, Arctic Siberia, yields clues to the riddle of mammoth hunting

It has become commonplace to talk about humans hunting mammoths, and overhunting is thought to have been one of the causes of the mammoth extinction. However, definite evidence of mammoth kills by humans remains surprisingly scarce. Here we show convincing evidence of mammoth hunting in the Siberian Arctic between 29 000 and 27 000 14C years BP. Our data set, from the Yana Upper Palaeolithic site (Siberian Arctic), includes the following: fragments of lithic points and ivory shaft embedded in two mammoth scapulae; two identical holes made by projectiles in a mammoth scapula and a pelvic bone; mammoth tongue bones found in the cultural layer far away from the main mammoth bone accumulation, indicating the consumption of fresh mammoth meat; and a narrow mammoth bone size distribution, implying hunting selection based on animal size. The data suggest that Palaeolithic Yana humans hunted mammoths sporadically, presumably when ivory was needed for making tools. Such non-intensive hunting practiced by humans over millennia would not be fatal to a sustainable mammoth population.

Preliminary results of studies of the Valea Morilor Upper Palaeolithic site (Chişinău, Republic of Moldova): A new camp of mammoth hunters

Preliminary results are presented from the studies of a newly found Paleolithic site – Valea Morilor (Chişinău, Republic of Moldova). The excavations produced unquestionable evidence of mammoth hunting (Mammuthus primigenius Blumenbach, 1799). Excavations of 2009–2010 opened an area of 1264 m2. Three radiocarbon datings (14C) of the fragments of fossil bones of mammots performed in the Gröningen University gave very similar results: in the excavation sector Nr.1 - 20770 ± 90 BP (GrA-46004;Obadă and van der Plicht, 2010); the sector Nr.2 - 20570 ± 80 BP (GrA-52424); and the sector Nr.3 - 20560 ± 80 BP (GrA-52425). Faunal remains are represented by more than 550 mammoth bones (belonging to at least 6 animals), as well as bones of bison (Bison priscus Bojanus, 1827), small mammals [Ochotona pusilla?; Spalax zemni Erxleben, 1777; Lagurus lagurus (Pallas, 1773)] and terrestrial molluscs Helicopsis striata (Mull.), Pupilla muscorum (L.), Vallonia pulchella (Mull.), and Succinea oblonga (Drap.).The assemblage of lithic tools includes 72 objects made of flint, 7 sandstone pebbles, and one made of white quartz. It seems likely that at least one wind-break (shelter) was constructed by the site dwellers. Numerous bones bear traces of cutting, splinting, grinding, and scraping. Darts and spear points found in the vicinity of large bones suggest the weapons deeply penetrated into the animals' soft tissues, and indicate that the Paleolithic inhabitants of the site actively hunted mammoths. A mammoth's elbow bone (ulna) was pierced with some weapon.

Middle Palaeolithic subsistence: The role of hominins at Lynford, Norfolk, UK

Lynford is the best preserved late Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 3) site in the UK where organic deposits have yielded a large lithic and faunal assemblage. The fauna is dominated by mammoth with various other large-medium-sized species indicative of colder climates (woolly rhino, reindeer, bison, and wolf). The site has been interpreted as evidence of Neanderthal hunting and butchery of mammoth through the absence of long bones and high incidence of pathologies. Detailed taphonomic investigation has highlighted a reduced role for hominins in faunal accumulation at this location. The evidence from Lynford does not support the idea of habitual mammoth hunting at this locale. Instead this paper will document flexible and opportunistic subsistence behaviour by Neanderthals at Lynford. This interpretation has implications for understanding Neanderthal land use, seasonality and environmental awareness.

Evidence for Younger Dryas global climate oscillation and human response in the American Southwest

Whether or not abrupt Younger Dryas climate change affected regional paleoenvironments and late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer populations is an important topic in the archaeology of the American Southwest. This paper reviews multiple, age-resolved proxy evidence to gauge the magnitude and direction of Younger Dryas Chronozone (YDC) environmental changes in different settings and systems. There is no record of YDC pluvial lake highstands in Arizona or New Mexico, but there are impressive records of vegetation, faunal, stable isotope, and geomorphological change coincident with the YDC. These correlate with important adaptive changes in human hunting and land use, as revealed in the analysis of the spatiotemporal distribution of late Pleistocene hunting technologies. Clovis and Folsom projectile point distributions do not support extant models of paleoenvironmental conditions in these interpretations. Significant cultural changes that coincide with the YDC include the Clovis-to-Folsom transition, the demise of mammoth hunting and the development of a highly successful emphasis on bison, increased regionalization, and the abandonment of the northwestern Chihuahuan and the Sonoran deserts by mobile, big-game hunters.

Mammalian fauna from Palaeolithic sites in the Upper Yenisei River basin (southern Siberia): Review of the current zooarchaeological evidence

AbstractThe palaeontological data on mammal remains from two Middle Palaeolithic (ca. 125 000 years ago – 27 200 BP) and 34 (ca. 34 000–12 000 BP) Upper Palaeolithic cultural complexes in the upper part of the Yenisei River basin (southern Siberia) are considered. General features of the faunal assemblages are established. Several issues are discussed, including (a) changes in species composition through time and palaeoenvironmental implications of the zooarchaeological records; (b) patterns of human exploitation (hunting) of mammals; (c) issue of mammoth hunting and (d) possibility of domestication of dog in the late Upper Palaeolithic in the Yenisei River basin. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Possible evidence of mammoth hunting during the Epigravettian at Yudinovo, Russian Plain

Whether or not mammoth hunting was practised during the Late Palaeolithic has been a controversial issue ever since large accumulations of woolly mammoth bones associated with prehistoric artefacts were discovered more than 100 years ago. Detailed taphonomic and palaeobiological analyses of the mammoth bone complexes from the Epigravettian Yudinovo site in the Russian Plain were carried out. The combination of the homogeneous weathering rate of the mammoth bones, the isolated state of most of the skeletal elements, the restricted spatial range of the carnivore gnawing traces, the breakage pattern of the skulls and long bones, the sex ratio, the small body size of the adult mammoths, the age profile (with an important frequency of prime-aged cows), and the large number of individuals, suggest that the bone complexes at Yudinovo were constructed from body parts and bones that were extracted from freshly killed mammoths and that mammoth hunting was practised at this site during the Epigravettian.

Man and woolly mammoth at the Kraków Spadzista Street (B) – taphonomy of the site

Excavations at the Kraków Spadzista Street (B) site, Poland were conducted over 16 years in which approximately 150 m 2 of the site was studied. The radiocarbon dates clustered around 23–24 ky BP, placing the site in the Gravettian cultural complex. In this paper, results from a detailed taphonomic study of faunal remains are discussed in conjunction with previous analyses of stone artefacts and site structure in order to address questions regarding site formation and Gravettian occupation. Up to 1994, ∼9000 bone remains were recovered and it was possible to identify the species and skeletal element for 5860 remains. The site contained bones of seven animal species associated with Pleistocene steppe–tundra habitats. At Kraków Spadzista Street (B), 99% of the faunal remains belong to the woolly mammoth, with other large mammal taxa represented by only isolated bones and teeth. This site yielded the largest number of mammoth bones and most individuals (MNI = 86) ever found in one place in Poland. Kraków Spadzista Street (B) represents a mammoth butchering locality and probably a mammoth hunting site as well. However, it is not yet possible to distinguish the mammoths killed by Gravettian hunters from those that died naturally and then were scavenged by people.

Radiocarbon chronology and environment of woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius Blum.) in northern Asia: results and perspectives

This paper reviews the history of the woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius Blum.) in Siberia and adjacent northern Asia. The particular emphases are the chronology and environment of mammoth existence and extinction, based on about 530 radiocarbon dates from about 230 localities with mammoth remains and palaeoenvironmental records of the last 50,000 years. Until ca. 12,000 radiocarbon years ago (BP), mammoths inhabited all of northern Asia, from the High Arctic to southern Siberia and northeastern China. Since ca. 12,000 BP, mammoth disappeared from major parts of Siberia and adjacent northern Asia, and survived mainly in the Arctic regions of Siberia, north of 69° northern latitude. However, recently, it was found that some mammoth populations continued to exist in central and southern Western Siberia until ca. 11,100–10,200 BP. ‘Normal’ size mammoths became extinct in mainland Siberia at the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary, ca. 9700 BP. On Wrangel Island in the High Arctic, small-sized mammoths survived into the Middle–Late Holocene, ca. 7700–3700 BP. Compared with previous studies, it is now possible to reveal the complex nature of the process of final mammoth extinction in Siberia, with some small populations surviving outside of the Arctic until ca. 10,000 BP. The extinction of mammoth was most probably caused by a combination of factors, such as global warming in the Late Glacial (since ca. 15,000 BP) and the disintegration of landscapes suitable for mammoths throughout the Upper Pleistocene, such as light forests with vast open spaces occupied by meadows and forest tundra. The expansion of forest vegetation after the Last Glacial Maximum in Siberia, including its northeastern part, created unsuitable habitats for herbivorous megafauna, especially for mammoths. However, the Holocene environment of Wrangel Island was not of ‘glacial’ type and this requires further studies. The relationship between mammoths and Upper Palaeolithic humans is also considered. The role of humans in the process of mammoth extinction was of secondary importance. The lack of direct evidences of mammoth hunting limits the estimation of its role in Upper Palaeolithic human subsistence. Siberia is undoubtedly the area where the final extinction of mammoth occurred, and the future study of this process is important to understand the patterns of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in the Northern Hemisphere.

Lugovskoe, Western Siberia: A Possible Extra-Arctic Mammoth Refugium at the End of the Late Glacial

Eleven woolly mammoth bone samples from Lugovskoe (central West Siberian Plain, Russia) were radiocarbon dated in 3 laboratories: Institute of Geology, Novosibirsk; Oxford University, Oxford; and Christian Albrechts University, Kiel. Each laboratory used its own protocol for collagen extraction. Parallel dating was carried out on 3 samples in Novosibirsk and Oxford. Two results are in good agreement. However, there is a major discrepancy between 2 dates obtained for the third sample. The dates obtained so far on the Lugovskoe mammoths range from about 18,250 BP to about 10,210 BP. The Lugovskoe results thus far confirm the possibility of woolly mammoth survival south of Arctic Siberia in the Late Glacial after about 12,000 BP, which has important implications for interpreting the process of mammoth extinction. The site has also produced the first reliable traces of human occupation from central Western Siberia at the Late Glacial, including unique direct evidence of mammoth hunting.

AMS 14C chronology of woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius Blum.) remains from the Shestakovo upper paleolithic site, western Siberia: Timing of human–mammoth interaction

We present a series of AMS 14C dates from the upper paleolithic site of Shestakovo, southwestern Siberia. The 14C ages range between 21 and 26 ka BP, corresponding to the so-called Sartan Glacial and Karginian Interglacial in Siberia. The majority of dates are from woolly mammoth bones, obtained from several discrete cultural layers, and range from ca. 25,700 to 21,600 BP. One charcoal date, ca. 23,300 BP, pinpoints the timing of at least one phase of site occupation by humans. The overlap of this date with the mammoth bone dates shows clearly that paleolithic people scavenged bones from natural death accumulations near the site. Mammoth hunting was most probably of limited scale. Conventional 14C dates from Shestakovo are also discussed.

Simulating Mammoth Hunting and Extinction: Implications for the Late Pleistocene of the Central Russian Plain

Mammoths were an important resource for Upper Palaeolithic hunter‐gatherers. Their remains are frequently found in faunal assemblages, their bones were used for the construction of dwellings, and they figure significantly in Palaeolithic art. Mammoths became extinct in North America at ca. 11,000 BP, in Eurasia at ca. 12,000 BP, and in Siberia at ca. 10,000 BP, and there has been considerable debate as to whether human predation was a causal factor. The computer simulation model described in this paper explores the effect of different types of hunting strategies on mammoth populations in a range of different environmental situations. It demonstrates that mammoth populations are extremely sensitive to predation. The simulation results are discussed with reference to the settlements on the Central Russian Plain. The results agree with Soffer's suggestion that the majority of mammoth remains probably derive from collecting, rather than hunting.