The Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Palaeolithic and Palaeoanthropology, is a partner in the new ERC Consolidator project MAMBA Exploring Mammoth Bone Accumulations In Central Europe. The Principal Investigator is Jarosław Wilczyński of the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences.
Participating institutions:
- Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet (SWE)
- Oesterreichische Akademie Der Wissenschaften (AT)
- Senckenberg Gesellschaft Fur Naturforschung (GER)
- University of Exeter (UK)
Goals of the project
The project focuses on research into the phenomenon of mammoth bone accumulations at the Upper Paleolithic sites of Central Europe. Despite many years of scientific research and dispute, our knowledge about these sites and the relationship between mammoths and contemporaneous Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers remains incomplete.
The new project will study the mammoth bone accumulations discovered in the forelands of the West Carpathians and seek to understand how they formed and which function they had for the hunter-gatherer groups 35,000–25,000 years ago – a period of major techno-cultural and environmental change in approaching the Last Glacial Maximum.
Contact person: Martin Novák