Mammoth Bone Settlements, thankfully abbreviated MBS, consist of between one to six huts built of mammoth bone coupled with hearths and storage pit features. Located in central Europe--most are in Ukraine--they primarily date to the late Upper Paleolithic. But dating them has always been a bit problematic.
Diorama display at the American Museum of Natural History, based in part on Mezhirich Mammoth Bone Settlement. Photo by Wally Gobetz
The first radiocarbon dates from the MBS in Ukraine returned dates extending well back into the Upper Paleolithic of some 20,000 years ago. More recent AMS dates suggest the majority of them date only between 14,000-15,000 years ago, what scholars are calling the Epi-Gravettian of the Late Upper Paleolithic.
But there's still one persistent outlier: Molodova, where unarguably Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals built a mammoth bone hut, and had pit features and hearths very similar to those later ones. Molodova in the Dniester valley dates some 30,000 years older than such settlements in the Dnieper valley: very strange indeed.
Comments
Hi, Kris,
I agree that the good evidence for mammoth bone dwellings is very interesting. However, including the Middle Palaeolithic site of Moldova I may not be the slam dunk that its excavators claim. In fact, an archaeologist with even a little experience in the natural accumulation of sediments and animal bone would say much the same as I’ve said in a couple of articles I wrote shortly after the Moldova claims were published. For an alternative interpretation of the Moldova evidence I would urge you and your readers to have a look at
http://thesubversivearchaeologist.blogspot.com/2011/12/one-mammoth-steppe-too-far.html and http://thesubversivearchaeologist.blogspot.com/2012/01/subversive-archaeologists-dictum.html
thanks Rob!
I just realized that my comment about ‘experience in … natural accumulations, etc.’ could be construed as an insult. It wasn’t intended to be anything more than an indication that I’m not just a voice crying in the wilderness. [if that makes any sense]
Yes … the design is clearly needed to be changed
What would be brighter , nebudu (