From Ornaments to Ecosystems: Exploring Hominin-Mammoth Interactions in the Late Pleistocene of the Swabian Jura (Southern Germany)

• Applicants: Privatdozentin Dr. Dorothée Drucker; Privatdozentin Dr. Britt Starkovich; Dr. Sibylle Elisabeth Wolf
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 555215875

The goal of this project is to analyze changes in hominin-mammoth interactions in the late Middle Paleolithic through Gravettian (ca. 60,000 to 30,000 cal BP) of the Swabian Jura, within the context of sites in the Meuse-Rhine-Danube Corridor. To do so, we will apply a multidisciplinary approach to test potential ecological and social/cultural feedback loops in the relationship between the two species. The core of our study will involve building a database of mammoth remains, zooarchaeological case studies, isotope analyses, and technological studies of artifacts made on mammoth bone and ivory, augmented by radiocarbon dating and Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS). In testing an ecological feedback loop, we examine whether the hominin exploitation of mammoth might have impacted mammoth ecology, and if the subsequent shift in mammoth abundance might have changed the conditions of access to mammoth meat and raw materials. Specifically, we will use collagen to reconstruct mammoth ecology through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios, and mammoth mobility patterns based on stable sulfur and strontium isotope ratios from collagen and enamel, respectively. We will also determine whether hominins hunted or scavenged mammoths by analyzing mammoth demographic profiles, and if the abundance of mammoth decreased through time at archaeological sites, with mammoths from later periods displaying pathologies or signs of nutritional stress. Within a social/cultural feedback loop, we will examine the idea that the planning involved in procuring a mammoth – through hunting or scavenging – is profound, as are decisions about how to use mammoth meat, bones, and ivory. The social ties necessary to undertake such an endeavor would have been reinforced by the social opportunities from exploiting such a large resource package. We will analyze the social/cultural feedback loop by establishing which mammoth elements were transported to archaeological sites in our study region during the Middle Paleolithic through Gravettian periods. In doing so, we will attempt to understand the transport goals of past foragers (e.g., meat, fat, tusks, or bones used as raw materials), with a focus on the over-representation of certain bone or tusk elements in the archaeological assemblages. We will then conduct a technological analysis involving elements commonly used for raw materials (e.g., ivory and ribs), byproducts of osseous tool manufacture, and formal tools and ornaments, in order to reconstruct the chaîne-opératoire of artifact production. The final step in our project will be synthesizing the results of the parallel components, in order to understand the full suite of hominin-mammoth interactions diachronically in a period of time that was critical to the evolutionary outcomes of both species.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Alexander Pryor