The archaeological site of Mezhirich is an Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) site located in Ukraine near Kiev, and it is one of the best preserved sites of its type excavated to date. The site is a large open air Upper Paleolithic site, dated to about 15,000 years ago.
Mezhirich, discovered by a farmer in the mid-1960s, includes a quite substantial mammoth bone dwelling, a circular hut or house built incorporating the tusks, leg bones, and jaw bones of mammoths, extinct elephants. The hut has been estimated to have included nearly 100 animals in the making.
Additional artifacts found in the interior of the hut included imported amber; a mammoth skull painted with red symbols and interpreted as a drum, one of the earliest known percussion instruments; and a mammoth tusk carved with what appears to be a map.
Sources
Cunliffe, Barry. 1998. Upper Paleolithic economy and society. In Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Soffer, Olga et al. 1997. Cultural stratigraphy at Mezhirich, an Upper Palaeolithic site in Ukraine with multiple occupations. Antiquity 71:48-62.
