A New Late Gravettian Mammoth Bone Deposit in Bukov, Ústí nad Labem, North Bohemia

Abstract

Mammoth hunting and the exploitation of mammoth resources is one of the most characteristic features of the Gravettian culture in Central Europe. The exact nature of the mammoth-human relationship has been a subject of scientific debate since the first excavations of mammoth bone deposits in the 19th century. The newly discovered Late Gravettian bone deposit in Ústí nad Labem, North Bohemia, Czech Republic, not only shifts this archaeological phenomenon further to the north-west but also represents a rare opportunity to study an almost completely excavated site of this type using modern methods. This paper presents a first view of the site formation, chronology and mammoth–human interactions at the site and discusses these aspects in the Central European context. It shows that the accumulation of bones in Ústí nad Labem has an anthropogenic origin and that humans exploited fresh mammoth carcasses, possibly obtained by selective hunting.