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The Discovery
The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, are based on genomic analysis of 521 woolly mammoths recovered from sites across Eurasia and North America. Remarkably, the DNA of 448 of these animals was sequenced for the very first time as part of the study, including specimens from the archaeological site of Kraków Spadzista in southern Poland.
The research was led by an international team of scientists working at the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Polish Academy of Sciences, who examined mammoth remains dating from approximately 30,000 to 20,000 years ago. By determining the sex of each animal in the sample, the team uncovered a striking divergence between mammoths recovered from natural bone deposits and those found at sites associated with human activity.
What Archaeologists Found
At natural bone deposits, males accounted for roughly two-thirds of the recovered remains, with females making up the remainder. Researchers say this pattern supports a long-held theory that solitary male mammoths were more prone to dying in natural hazards such as sinkholes or landslides, making their remains more likely to survive and be preserved in the geological record.
At archaeological sites, however, this pattern was dramatically reversed. There, approximately 70 percent of recovered mammoth remains belonged to females, compared with just 30 percent belonging to males. To reach this conclusion, researchers compared genetic data from 100 mammoths recovered from archaeological contexts against 421 animals from natural bone accumulations spanning both Eurasia and North America.
Historical Background
Woolly mammoths occupied a central place in Ice Age human life, extending well beyond their role as a food source. Their bones were used in the construction of shelters, while their tusks were fashioned into tools, ornaments and works of art, alongside providing meat, fat and hides essential to survival on the Late Pleistocene steppe. Direct evidence of mammoth hunting by Upper Palaeolithic people is well established, including projectile points found embedded in mammoth bones at various sites, though scavenging of already-deceased animals for meat and raw materials is also documented.
The Kraków Spadzista site in southern Poland, one of the key locations contributing samples to this study, has long been recognised as an important source of evidence for understanding the relationship between Ice Age humans and mammoth populations in Central Europe.
Scientific Analysis
Dr Jarosław Wilczyński, an archaeologist at the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a co-author of the study, noted that the consistent pattern observed across sites points to a systematic aspect of how Upper Palaeolithic people obtained mammoths, even though the precise reasons behind this pattern remain uncertain.
One possible explanation considered by the researchers is that female mammoths, being generally smaller than adult males, may simply have represented easier prey. However, the team cautions against an overly simple interpretation. If woolly mammoths behaved similarly to modern elephants, females would likely have lived within closely bonded matriarchal herds capable of collectively defending one another — potentially making them just as dangerous, if not more so, to hunt than solitary bull mammoths.
Lead author Dr Hannah M. Moots of the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm has proposed an alternative explanation rooted in herd behaviour rather than vulnerability. She suggests that female-led herds may have moved across the landscape in more predictable patterns than solitary males, meaning hunter-gatherers may simply have encountered them more frequently — whether they were actively hunting or collecting the remains of animals that had already died.
Why This Discovery Matters
This research offers one of the clearest genetic snapshots yet obtained of the relationship between Ice Age humans and woolly mammoths, moving beyond indirect archaeological inference to direct genetic evidence drawn from hundreds of individual animals. The scale of the sample size, spanning both Eurasia and North America, allows researchers to identify patterns that would be far harder to detect from smaller, more localised datasets.
Professor Love Dalén of Stockholm University, commenting on the broader significance of the work, highlighted the substantial potential of ancient DNA analysis for resolving long-standing archaeological questions. According to Dalén, analysing increasing numbers of ancient samples allows researchers not only to reconstruct the evolutionary history of species such as the woolly mammoth, but also to investigate animal behaviour and human cultural practices reaching back tens of thousands of years.
What's Next?
As ancient DNA sequencing technology continues to advance and become more accessible, researchers anticipate that further large-scale genomic studies of Ice Age megafauna will help refine understanding of prehistoric hunting strategies, herd behaviour and human-animal interactions across other species and regions. The methodology demonstrated in this mammoth study — comparing sex ratios between natural and archaeological contexts — could plausibly be applied to other large Pleistocene species for which sufficient genetic material survives.
Continued analysis of samples from sites such as Kraków Spadzista, alongside the identification of new archaeological mammoth deposits, is likely to further clarify whether the female-hunting pattern observed here reflects deliberate selection, herd encounter probability, or a combination of both factors.
Conclusion
This large-scale genetic study of woolly mammoth remains offers a compelling and unexpected insight into Ice Age hunting practices, suggesting that Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers encountered or targeted female mammoths considerably more often than males. While the precise reasons behind this pattern remain open to interpretation, the research underscores the remarkable power of ancient DNA to illuminate not just the biology of extinct species, but the behaviour and decisions of the prehistoric humans who lived alongside them.
Sources : PAP
FAQ
Q: What did the mammoth DNA study find? A: Analysis of 521 woolly mammoths found that around 70% of remains at archaeological sites belonged to females, compared with only about a third of remains at natural bone deposits.
Q: Why were more male mammoths found at natural sites? A: Researchers believe solitary male mammoths were more likely to die in natural hazards such as sinkholes or landslides, making their remains more likely to be preserved.
Q: Why might Ice Age hunters have targeted female mammoths more often? A: Possible explanations include females being smaller and potentially easier prey, or female-led herds moving in more predictable patterns, making them more frequently encountered by hunter-gatherers.
Q: Where did the mammoth samples come from? A: Samples came from sites across Eurasia and North America, including the archaeological site of Kraków Spadzista in southern Poland.
Q: Who led this research? A: The study was led by Dr Hannah M. Moots of the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, with contributions from Dr Jarosław Wilczyński of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Professor Love Dalén of Stockholm University.
