Mammoth Bones at Bukov May Reveal Repeated Ice Age Hunts

Woolly mammoths, elephant-sized kin of today’s elephants covered in dense fur, once travelled across the icy grasslands of Ice Age Eurasia.

In November 2024, archaeologists overseeing work at a construction site in the Czech Republic spotted mammoth bones appearing from the soil.

As the ground was excavated, the find developed into an Ice Age landscape: thousands of animal remains alongside fractured stone points, evidence of fires and red ochre.

At least 20 mammoths were deposited at the same location. The assemblage could retain evidence for repeated mammoth hunting roughly 27,000 years ago.

Mammoth bones discovered during Bukov construction

The bones were uncovered during construction of a Justice Palace in Bukov, a district of Ústí nad Labem in northern Bohemia.

Archaeologists documented over 3,500 animal remains across an area of about 1,000 square metres. Nineteen lower jaws and a single isolated tooth indicated a minimum of 20 woolly mammoths.

The collection also included woolly rhinoceroses, a horse, a reindeer and a hare.

Nearly every element of the mammoth skeleton appeared among the remains, though tusks and skull fragments were uncommon. The researchers point out that hunting animals of this size usually demands cooperation between groups, although the Bukov evidence does not show how the hunts were arranged.

Below the bone layer were three distinct combustion features. A possible fourth feature, comprising a cluster of burnt bones, was located north of the most concentrated area of remains.

Archaeologists also found stones probably brought to the location, along with a pendant made from mammoth ivory. Areas of red ochre were found immediately beneath large bones.

Red ochre, an iron-rich pigment, was used by prehistoric people. The study does not assign a function to it at this site.

Late Gravettian tools and evidence of butchery

The team recovered Late Gravettian artefacts, including backed bladelets, cutting tools, a Kostenki-style knife and possible projectile fragments.

A preliminary use-wear study assessed eight tools chosen because they displayed visible signs of wear. At least one tool was linked to butchery, while others showed traces consistent with working hides and cutting soft materials. Cut marks were also present on individual mammoth ribs.

Two stone artefacts had fracture patterns assessed as consistent with impact, which supports the possibility that they served as projectile components.

Taken together, these findings indicate that people dealt with fresh mammoth carcasses at the site instead of simply gathering old bones.

Herčíková said the cut and butchery marks on post-cranial remains suggest that "mammoth meat was exploited for dietary purposes", rather than bones merely being gathered from the landscape.

Four preliminary radiocarbon dates, obtained from charcoal in two combustion features, fell between approximately 28,800 and 25,600 years ago. Variation between the samples makes the chronology more difficult to establish, but both the dates and the stone-tool types place the site in the Late Gravettian.

Gravettian deposits containing mammoth bones are already known from Moravia, Lower Austria and southern Poland. No comparable deposit has been recorded in Bohemia, while finds dating to this later period are uncommon in other areas as well.

"The finds from Bukov, Ústí nad Labem in north Bohemia signify both a geographic and temporal outlier," Herčíková said.

Mammoth ages may point to several hunts

Most of the mammoths were sexually mature but had not finished growing. Based on the development of African elephants, 13 of the 20 animals were estimated to have been about 13 to 27 years old.

"The mortality profile is dominated by (sub-)adult individuals, which are unlikely to die of natural causes," Herčíková explained.

Some of them could have been solitary young males that had only recently departed from their family herds, although the researchers offer this as just one possible explanation.

The paper records the presence of mammoths younger than five years old. Yet the overall age profile does not closely fit one matriarchal herd, and only a small number of individuals might potentially be matched as mothers and calves.

The remains could consequently reflect multiple hunts instead of a single catastrophic event. Although certain body parts were still articulated, the bones’ random alignment indicates that the remains experienced little disturbance after they were deposited.

It remains possible that people scavenged mammoths which had died naturally, and the researchers cannot determine how rapidly the deposit accumulated.

Mammoth DNA and sex analysis could establish whether the animals were related, whether males or females were more numerous, and whether hunters targeted particular groups. Recent genetic research found that mammoths in other deposits associated with humans were predominantly female, at about 70 percent.

Herčíková said the team plans to examine the assemblage’s sex distribution and any potential hereditary relationships.

Patterns in the body parts may indicate how the carcasses were used. Dental microwear, isotope analysis, sedimentary DNA and additional dating could reveal the mammoths’ diets and surroundings, as well as whether the deposit resulted from a brief occupation or repeated visits.

The bones may show whether people hunted mammoths repeatedly at Bukov, how they processed the carcasses and, if they did return, why they came back to the same location.

The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

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