ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

Since the 19th century, the discovery of large accumulations of woolly mammoth remains at archaeological sites in the foreland of the Western Carpathians received great attention from both the scientific community and the general public. This is shown by a high number of research papers as well as extensive public media coverage, including regular news items on the discovery of mammoth carcasses preserved in the permafrost of Siberia and speculations about a revival of this giant mammal through cloning. Despite many years of field research, material studies, and scientific dispute, however, our knowledge about the relationship between mammoths and the contemporaneous Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers living 35,000-25,000 years ago is incomplete. Our project aims to determine how and why mammoth remains came to be amassed and what purpose they served for hunter-gatherer societies 25 000-35 000 years ago. It will compare chrono-geographic shifts of hominid and mammoth populations using advanced genetic and isotopic analyses. The project will give insight into the behaviour of Palaeolithic societies and their adaptability to climate and environmental changes.

PROJECT GOALS

The main objective of the project is to understand the genesis of large mammoth bone accumulations and explore the function they played for the hunter-gatherer societies in Central Europe 35,000-25,000 years ago, i.e. within the time period preceding the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and during its beginning. Considering that these mammoth bone accumulation sites always unambiguously show anthropogenic impact, such as the presence of artefacts and/or artificial structures, it is likely that deliberate human choice accounted at least partially for the creation of the unusually large mammoth bone accumulations formed 35,000 to 25,000 years ago.

Within this project we are focused on three main research issues:

• changes among hunter-gatherer societies between 35-25 ka

• the critical changes in mammoth populations in the 35-25 ka interval

• detailed descriptions of the palaeoenvironment from 35-25 ka
  

In this project we study materials from well-known and key archaeological mammoth bone accumulation sites, both existing archaeological collections and new fieldwork. The proposed methodology will allow a holistic investigation of the formation of mammoth bone accumulations and produce a statistically analysable dataset revealing the interactions occurring between human and mammoth populations in Central Europe in the context of palaeoenvironmental changes.

In addition to traditional archaeological and bioarchaeological approaches, we utilise recent methodological and technological advances in ancient DNA research, stable isotope studies, radiometric dating, geoarchaeological analyses, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and palaeodemographic modelling.