If you're going to talk about the history of houses, the issue of mammoth bone dwellings is going to come up.
Mezhirich Ukraine (Diorama display at the American Museum of Natural History)
Photo Credit: Wally Gobetz
A mammoth is a kind of enormous ancient extinct elephant, and they were an excellent good source of meat, marrow, hide and sinew to our ancestors of around 10,000 years ago and greater. Megafauna such as mammoth pretty much died out at the end of the Pleistocene, however, for a variety of reasons that archaeologists don't fully understand, or at least are able to argue about when given the opportunity.
Mammoth bone huts are known from sites in central Europe between about 27,000 and 12,000 years ago. A few of the best known structures are from the Dneiper river valley of the Ukraine, in the Upper Paleolithic of about 15,000 years ago. The Dneiper River sites are located on promontories with good vistas, and the sites generally consist of a single circular or oval structure constructed of mammoth bones, probably covered with hide and sometimes with rough stone foundation rings. Dneiper River sites which have been extensively published in English include Mezhirich, Molodova, and Ginsy, all located in what is now Ukraine.
Related Resources: Mammoth Bone Dwellings | Mammoth and Mastodon | Megafaunal Extinctions | Megafaunal Extinction Quiz | Ancient Housing
Mezhirich Ukraine (Diorama display at the American Museum of Natural History)
Photo Credit: Wally Gobetz
Mammoth bone huts are known from sites in central Europe between about 27,000 and 12,000 years ago. A few of the best known structures are from the Dneiper river valley of the Ukraine, in the Upper Paleolithic of about 15,000 years ago. The Dneiper River sites are located on promontories with good vistas, and the sites generally consist of a single circular or oval structure constructed of mammoth bones, probably covered with hide and sometimes with rough stone foundation rings. Dneiper River sites which have been extensively published in English include Mezhirich, Molodova, and Ginsy, all located in what is now Ukraine.
Related Resources: Mammoth Bone Dwellings | Mammoth and Mastodon | Megafaunal Extinctions | Megafaunal Extinction Quiz | Ancient Housing
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