Living Inside a Mammoth

Abstract

The mammoth bone heaps found by a villager in the year 1965 have the potential to be a source of scientific discourse ranging from the intersection of archaeological history and architecture to the fields of anthropology, psychology, and the history of religions. In Central Ukraine, as a result of the archaeological studies, four huts consisting of approximately 150 mammoth bones were found. Those huts were built approximately 15,000 years ago. Such evidence seems to suggest that the skeletons and skins of large mammals were used as shelters during the Ice Age, perhaps as an alternative to cave dwellings. In doing so, the earliest communities may have attempted to create a more permanent, higher, and wider-span shelter with the same materials. Transforming a mammoth corpse into a shelter - temporary or not - is most likely a communal effort that may have not only led to the construction of more permanent structures but also provided an iconic model for the carrier system used in tent-type huts built with available materials.