The late Upper Palaeolithic site of Gontsy (Ukraine): A reference for the reconstruction of the...

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The late Upper Palaeolithic site of Gontsy (Ukraine): A referencefor the reconstruction of the hunteregatherer system basedon a mammoth economy

L. Iakovleva a,d, F. Djindjian b,d,*, E.N. Maschenko c, S. Konik e, A.-M. Moigne f

a Institute of Archaeology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 12 Avenue des Héros de Stalingrad, 254655 Kiev-210, Ukraineb Institute of Art and Archaeology, University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, 3 rue Michelet, 75006 Paris, Francec Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Profsoyuznaia, 123, Moscow 117 995, RussiadCNRS UMR 7041 Arscan, FranceeNational Centre for Prehistory, 38 rue du 26� R.I., 24000 Périgueux, FrancefNational Museum of Natural Sciences & UMR 5198, CRP, Musée de Tautavel, 66720 Tautavel, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Available online 18 October 2011

a b s t r a c t

The long-term excavations of the LUP settlement of Gontsy (Ukraine), with its mammoth bone huts andassociated with a mammoth bone bed, has allowed reconstruction of all the pieces of the puzzle of thistype of settlement and the major role of the economy of mammoth in the Mezinian peopling of themiddle and upper Dnepr basin (Ukraine and Russia). The settlements generally share the samegeomorphology, a promontory cut by ravines on the slope of a river valley. The dwelling area is organizedaround mammoth bone huts, with numerous pits around each hut, large working areas with hearths,dumping areas, a butchering area for small and medium mammals, and the existence of a mammothbone bed, which has been largely exploited during the occupation of the settlement. The landscapeanalysis, using the information from the mapping, the functions and the seasonality of the settlements,characterizes a particular system based on the economy of mammoth, limited to a short period between15 000 and 14000 BP at the beginning of the climatic change ending the last ice age. The Meziniansystem is compared to similar systems such as the Pavlovian in Moravia and the eastern Gravettian incentral and eastern Europe, in which mammoth bone beds have also been found near the settlementsand which show the same economy based on the mammoth.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

1. The mammoth bone hut settlements of the middleand upper Dnepr basin during the late UpperPalaeolithic (15 000e14000 BP)

The 1871 discovery of the Palaeolithic site of Gontsy (Ginsy inUkrainian), located on the Udaï river (Soula, mid Dnepr basin) nearLubny in the Poltava region (Ukraine), marked the beginning ofPrehistoric research in Eastern Europe. Many other mammoth bonedwelling settlements of the late Upper Palaeolithic have beenexcavated over the following 140 years by numerous archaeologists(Iakovleva, 2010) in the middle and upper Dnepr basin, defininga territory of peopling of hunter-gatherers specialized in the

economy of the mammoth during a short period, 15 000e14000 BP(Djindjian et al., 1999; Iakovleva, 1999, 2009a).

2. The excavations in Gontsy (1871e2011)

The discovery of the site by G.S. Kyriakov in 1871 was followedby the first excavations directed by F.I. Kaminski from 1873, whowith the geologist K.M. Feofilactov published the first results at the3� Russian archaeological congress in Kiev (Kaminski, 1878). Thesite was then excavated in 1905 by an amateur, Guelvig, in1914e1915 by V.M. Scherbakivski, director of the Poltava museum,who found the dwelling n�1 (Scherbakivski, 1919, 1926; Gorodtsov,1926), in 1935 by I.F. Levitski and A.I. Brusov who excavated mainlythe mammoth bone bed (Brusov, 1940; Levitski, 1947), and in1977e1981 by V.I. Sergin who dismantled the dwelling n�1 pro-tected by Scherbakivski (Sergin, 1981, 1983). In 1993, a newresearch project restarted a program of long-term excavations,directed by L.A. Iakovleva (I.A. NASU) and F. Djindjian (University of

* Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L. Iakovleva), francois.djindjian@

wanadoo.fr (F. Djindjian), [email protected] (E.N. Maschenko), [email protected](S. Konik), [email protected] (A.-M. Moigne).

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Quaternary International 255 (2012) 86e93


Paris 1) in order to reconstitute the entire settlement in its envi-ronment (Iakovleva and Djindjian, 2000, 2005; Iakovleva et al.,2010). After 19 years of excavations, the settlement of Gontsy hasdelivered several different mammoth bone dwellings, variousworking, dumping and butchering areas around the dwellings, andin a nearby paleoravine a large mammoth bone bed, allowing forthe first time a very complete reconstruction of the settlement(Fig. 1).

3. Overview of the site of Gontsy

The settlement of Gontsy is located on the slope of the Udaïvalley, on a terrace promontory surrounded by the convergence oftwo paleoravines (Fig. 2). The stratigraphy of the Gontsy settlementhas been established with numerous sections over the promontoryof the site and inside the paleoravines. The sections reveal a multi-occupation site with two archaeological layers (upper layer andlower layer), demonstrating that the site has been occupied at leasttwice within a very short time (less than 500 years considering thestandard deviation of the 14C dates). The difference of depthbetween the two layers is greater inside the paleoravine (around75 cm of laminations), where the sedimentation rate has beenparticularly fast during the short period of human occupation, thanon the promontory (around 20 cm of loess), in the area of themammoth bone dwellings. In the lower layer, the archaeologicalremains are particularly dense. The mammoth bone huts, pits andrelated working, dumping and butchering areas, are directly asso-ciated with the mammoth bone bed along the slope of the prom-ontory and the bottom of the paleoravine. In the upper layer,archaeological remains are less dense. The question of a possible re-use during the late occupation (upper layer) of the mammoth bone

dwellings built during the early occupation (lower layer) has beenresolved by the microstratigraphy studies in the areas excavated inhangar n�1. The site has been dated in the Oxford radiocarbonlaboratory, with a series of 13 14C dates between 14110 BP and14620 BP, including the bone bed. The 14C dates of the wholemammoth bone hut settlements of the middle and upper Dneprbasin have been recently revisited and the occupation has beenreduced from the original 22 000e12000 BP interval to15000e14000 BP (Iakovleva, 1999; Iakovleva and Djindjian, 2005).

Spatial intrasite analysis of the lower level has revealedan organized occupation layer through several specialized areas(A to D). On the promontory, several areas, from the interior to theexterior, have been distinguished:

- (A) the area of mammoth bone huts (the large ones have 6 mdiameter, and a small one about 2.7�1.7 m) and other relatedstructures and surrounded pits (up to 10 pits per hut), sepa-rated by about 10 m of working areas with hearths;

- (B) Dumping areas, with remains of hearth cleaning and flintchipping works;

- (C) Butchering areas, limited to medium and small mammals(reindeer, carnivores, rodents);

- (D) On the slope and the bottom of the paleoravine,a mammoth bone bed, associated with other mammal bones,but also with hearths, bone and flint artefacts, demonstratinga large exploitation of the bone bed by the inhabitants of thesettlement.

Since 2000, the active excavations are developed under largehangars which allow excavation without any constraints of timeand climate, and to keep the archaeological layers and the

Fig. 1. Map of the excavations in Gontsy (1871e2011). (Iakovleva and Djindjian).

L. Iakovleva et al. / Quaternary International 255 (2012) 86e93 87


dwellings in situ. Hangar n�1 has been erected on the promontoryand covers a partially excavated structure and large working areaswith hearths (Fig. 3). Hangar n� 2 has been erected in the bottom ofthe eastern paleoravine over a dense mammoth bone bed (Fig. 4).Hangar 3 (renamed 1a) is a large extension to the north of Hangar 1dedicated to the excavation, in progress since 2009, of a newmammoth bone hut with its associated pits (Fig. 5).

4. The dwellings on the promontory

The promontory is cut by two ravines converging down alongthe slope of the valley, oriented to the north. The eastern ravine isfulfilled by a mammoth bone bed which has been exploited by thefirst inhabitants of the settlement who have built the dwellings

Fig. 2. The geomorphology of the site of Gontsy (Ukraine) with two ravine convergingto define a promontory where the settlement is located. Drawing by Iakovleva andDjindjian.

Fig. 3. The working areas showing the upper and lower layers (Gontsy, Hangar 1).Photo: Iakovleva and Djindjian.

Fig. 4. The mammoth bone bed in the paleoravine (Gontsy, hangar 2). Photo: Iakovlevaand Djindjian.

Fig. 5. Mammoth bone hut n�2 (excavations in progress since 2009e2010). Photo:Iakovleva and Djindjian.

L. Iakovleva et al. / Quaternary International 255 (2012) 86e9388


around 14 500 BP. The western ravine, which has been totally infilled at the end of the XIXth century by peasants who planteda forest of acacias on the slope of the valley for honey producing,has not been excavated.

The promontory has a surface of about 40� 80 m2. The dwell-ings seem to have been aligned from the southern to the northernpart of the settlement:

- The first dwelling (n� 0) was supposedly found by Guelvig in1905, of which the only evidence is the three pits excavated byLevitski and Brusov in 1935.

- The second dwelling is the mammoth bone hut (n�1) foundduring the 1914e15 excavations by Scherbakivski. Ten pits havebeen found around a 6 m diameter hut, built above the foun-dations of 28mammoth skulls. The structure, protected in 1915by Scherbakivski under a wood protection, was unfortunatelydismantled by Sergin in 1977.

- The third dwelling is a small hut about 2.7�1.7 m2, mainlybuilt with only two male adult tusks, a skull, a long bone andfragments of skull alveoli. The dwelling is built above an ovaldepression fulfilled by black organic sediment, resulting fromeither the decomposition of a litter or trapped ashes of thehearth at the top of a pit located near the structure. Inside thehut, only three pieces have been found: a hammer made ona base of a reindeer antler, a fragment of pelvis used asa colorant recipient, and the point of a juvenile engraved tusk(Fig. 6).

- The fourth structure is a limited unexcavated accumulation ofbones, perhaps a large pit, protected under hangar 1, showingat the top of a surface of less than 3 m2, a minimum of 3 pelvis,1 scapula, 2 tusks, 2 long bones and one fragment of skull.

- The fifth dwelling is a very large hut (n� 2), more than 6 mdiameter, partially excavated in 2009 and 2010 over a surface of40 m2 (Fig. 5). The total surface expected by the 2011/2012excavations is about 70 m2. The temporary inventory of themammoth bones at the end of the 2010 campaign is about 125tusks, 60 scapulae, 20 skulls, 10 pelvis, 12 long bones, and 5mandibles, corresponding to perhaps two third of the total hut.Such large structures have been discovered in Ioudinovo and inKostienki 11, Anosovka 2.

- A sixth structure was discovered in 2006 by a 2� 2 m core,which is now located inside Hangar 3, and where a mammoth

skull and a tusk have been recorded inside 1 m2. It could beanother mammoth bone hut.

The areas between the huts have been generally removed by thedifferent previous excavations. However, a working area of 40 m2

including 3 pits, the small hut, and one colorant hearth has beenexcavated during the 1998 campaign. Between 2001 and 2006,protected by Hangar 1, a working area of 66 m2 has been excavated,including the fourth structure and several hearths. In that part, theupper level and the lower level are separated by 20 cm of sterileloess. The second working area is located contiguously to the northof the previous one. All over the promontory, working areas andhearths existed between the different huts and their surroundingpits. The distance between huts, limited by the numerous pits, isdifficult to estimate precisely but does not exceed 10 m.

In the eastern part of the promontory, beyond the pitssurrounding hut n�1, there is a line of several dumping areas: ashesand burnt bone fragments of cleaning hearths or flint knappingpiles. Further beyond, there is a butchering area of hunted animalscarried back to the settlement: reindeer, carnivores, and rodents,extending to the limit of the promontory and the beginning of thegentle slope of the ravine. The first mammoth bones of the bonebed appear here, and cover the entire slope and the bottom of theravine, along about 100 m, as indicated by numerous cores.

Thewestern and the northern limits of the promontory have notbeen reached by the old and present excavations. The southern partof the site has been destroyed by the excavations of Guelvig, forwhich there is absolutely no information. This is not the case for theolder and later excavations which are relativelywell documented. Itis not possible to reconstruct the total settlement, which is knownpartially or well documented over 70% of the total surface of thepromontory. The bone bed of the eastern ravine has not been totallyexcavated. A part of it has been protected inside Hangar n�2 andanother part is intact under several meres of loess. It is not known ifthere is a bone bed in the western ravine.

5. The settlement

The site of Gontsy, which has been excavated over 19 years from1993 to 2011, is now the reference for the reconstruction of theMezinian settlements, because all the parts of the settlements havebeen excavated and associated with each other. Excavations ofother sites before 1950 were all partial, due to the poor under-standing of the settlement, and between 1950 and 1970 due to thepriority given to the discovery of the mammoth bone huts.

The typical settlement area of a Mezinian site is constituted byseveral mammoth bone huts, certainly 4 (Mézine, Dobranichivka,Mejiriche, Gontsy, Ioudinovo), perhapsmore. Amammoth bone hutgenerally has an average diameter of about 6 m, determined by anoval of mammoth skulls, forming the foundations of the hut. Thewalls are erected with largest mammoth bones including skulls,pelvis, scapula, jaws, long bones, and tusks. Their association insidethe walls reveals geometric patterns, identical to those painted orengraved on large mammoth bones or tusks, and on the ornamentsor female statuettes (Iakovleva, 2009b), which are individual,family or group markers. Exceptional huts are larger, around 8 mdiameter, as at Ioudinovo, Kostienki 11 Anosovka 2 and n Gontsy.Rare but present, and perhaps not well identified, are the small hutsas at Mezine and Gontsy. The small hut of Gontsy has beenreconstructed for the 2010 mammoth exhibition in the Le Puymuseum from the model of Fig. 6.

The architectures of mammoth bone huts are different in thePavlovian, the eastern Gravettian, and theMezinian. The huts foundin the Pavlovian (early Gravettian) of Moravia have not always beendetermined during the excavations and are often post-excavation

Fig. 6. Reconstruction of the small none mammoth hut (Gontsy, Ukraine). Modeling:Tsibryk.



reconstructions. The data reveal a tipi like hut, with a circular baseand the use of wood poles and skins, from which only a circle oflarge mammoth bones or stones for handling the skins on theground and an internal hearth remain (Valoch, 1996; Oliva, 2009).The architecture of the eastern Gravettian dwellings is even morecomplex, with a line of numerous (dozen) hearths inside an oval ofpits of various size and depth. They are best preserved in Kostienki1, layer 1 and Avdeevo where two structures have been recorded ineach site. The largest pits are often interpreted as subterraneandwellings and the others as storage or garbage pits. The interpretedlimits of the structure vary among authors (Iakovleva, 2003). It isdifficult to believe in the existence of subterranean dwellings insidelarge pits where inhabitants would be in contact with permafrost ata time not very far from the maximum ice age. It is perhaps morecredible to imagine an oval wall around the hearth line, built withthe loess extracted from the pits. The Mezinian dwellings showa real architectural evolution in the history of prehistoric archi-tecture. For the first time, they have foundations, made by a circle ofskulls. The bones used for erecting the wall are modified by holes(scapula, pelvis) or by pointed or digging extremities of long bones,for tying up or embedding bones. Tusks or long bones are verticallyput into the sediment as posts inside the hut. Around the hut, thereis a circle of pits of various sizes, depths and contents. The possiblefunctions of the pits have been discussed, and many hypotheseshave been proposed. Some pits contain a certain number of largemammoth bones, and have been interpreted for storing reservebones for the huts. Some others contain various bones and artefactsand have been interpreted as garbage areas. Hearths have beensometimes installed on the top of a pit, fulfilled by various artefacts.Binford (1993) has proposed the hypothesis, influenced by theNuniamut model, of the function of pits as refrigerator duringsummer for food in contact with the permafrost in the bottom ofthe pit, closed by a large bone, as a “cache”.

This paper proposes a new hypothesis. The first function of thepits would be a loess outcrop used for the wall consolidation, as forNeolithic dwellings. In Gontsy, when dwelling n�2 fell, loesscovered the working area located in the southern part of the hutand partially a hearth. Large bones of the hut fell on this loess. Sucha configuration is very difficult to excavate well, and it is possiblethat in previous excavations in other sites, such features would nothave been observed. The presence of a wall of loess armed by themammoth bones could explain construction of the hut and thecover of the hut by the heavy tusks overhanging each other,because they are support dry loess walls. All the reconstructions ofmammoth bone huts in museums use hidden wood or metal poststo support the roof. The secondary functions of the pits may includehypotheses given previously: food conservation, bone storing,cache, garbage pit, filled pit reused for a hearth.

Besides the huts, there is archaeologically rich sediment withthe remains of activities: flint tools and blanks, bone and ivorytools, ivory fragments, colorants (ochre spots, ochre block orpencil), and ornaments. There are very few bones found in theworking areas, and there are generally tools, fragment of tools orvestiges of manufacturing tools. Large hearths are present, con-taining mainly ashes and fragments of burnt bones. Their relativelysmall depths confirm the importance of the large dumping areasfound in the eastern part of the settlement. In Gontsy, a particularsmall hearth has been found and interpreted as a colorant hearth,to transform goethite into hematite. Many features of the archae-ological soil reveal the tasks done: a small concentration of retouchflakes near the small hut, as if the residues of the knapping of toolsmade on a skin has been thrown out at that place, or a line of flakesfrom the large hearth of Hangar 1 to the dumping area, as if flakeshad fallen from a skin during the transport; a concentration of awlsmade on metatarsus of carnivores show a place of skin working.

The site of Gontsy has delivered a particularly important surface ofworking areas, particularly in the area excavated during the 1998campaign located in the western part of dwelling n�1 and aroundthe small dwelling, and in Hangar 1 and 1a at the southern part andthe western part of dwelling n�2. In the other Mezinian sites,excavated earlier, the archaeological occupation sediment has notbeen well documented, perhaps due to the disturbance of thepleniglacial post-depositional processes (Timonovka, Elisseevichi),or the use of inappropriate techniques of excavation. The sites ofGontsy and Ioudinovo show working areas, indicating they werepresent in all the sites.

6. The mammoth bone bed in the eastern paleoravine

The mammoth bone bed of the eastern paleoravine has beenexcavated during the 1935 excavations of Levitski and Brusov, andduring the authors’ excavations for the area removed (1994, 1995,1998, 1999, 2000) and for the area protected in Hangar 2 (2004-2006), on a total surface of about 1000 m2 (Fig. 4). The detailedstudy of the 80 m2 of the mammoth bone bed layer protected in thehangar 2 has allowed determination of the main features of thebone bed (Iakovleva et al., 2010):

- The bone bed is a unique layer, the bones standing on the samesandy lamination which may be followed in the stratigraphy.

- The bones are all in situ, all but the thinnest bone fragmentswhich have been washed by the snow thawing, and are found1e2 cm above the bones.

- There are no bones above and under the bone bed, and there isno other bone bed in the ravine,

- The ravine has been fulfilled very rapidly by sandy and siltylaminations at the bottom of the ravine and above by siltylaminations. There is a 75 cm depth between the upper layerand the lower layer, indicating very fast sedimentation in theravine, revealing a change in the climate at that time, notperhaps a change of temperature but certainly a change in thewetness, with snowfall during the winter.

- The bottom of the ravine was dry, during winter with the snowand the frost, and during the dry summer, refuting thehypothesis of a pool where mammoths could procure water oreat silt.

- The mammoth bones, generally intact, though not in anatom-ical position in assemblages, form anatomical groups and it ispossible to link locally the bones to an individual.

- The mammoth bones are in an excellent state of conservation,without any carnivore gnawing or weathering. The most fragilebones, fetus and hyoids, are numerous and well conserved, con-firming that the bone bed has been rapidly covered by sediment.

- The most numerous bones are ribs, vertebras, and distal legbones. In Hangar 2, they represent almost 90% of themammothbones (including fragments). There is an overrepresentation ofthese bones and an under representation of scapulae, pelvis,skulls, tusks, long bones and jaws. It is exactly the opposite ofthe inventory of the bones of a mammoth bone hut.

- The attempt to reconstitute a whole mammoth individual hasfailed, an average of 20% of the bones of the skeleton arepresent in the bone bed, indicating major anthropic exploita-tion of the bone bed,

- The mammoth bones have been systematically used also forfuel in the numerous hearths of the settlement, as shown bythe very numerous bone charcoals found in the hearths andalso in the dumping areas, confirming they were fresh bones atthe time of their use, and explaining the low rate of bones byskeleton in the bone bed, selected both for fuel, for buildinghuts and for making tools.



- Over 80 m2, the composition of the mammoth group yieldedremains of 6 mammoths of different ages and sex, including anadult cow and an adult bull with numerous bones, two moreadults, one sub-adult, and several bones of two juveniles. Ifgenerally the composition over all the bone bed correspondsto a natural herd (supposed with the non-demonstratedhypothesis of a constant density of about 70 individuals over1000 m2), the presence of several male adults makes morecomplex the question of the origins of the bone bed.

- Isolated bones from other mammals are present: reindeer,bison, horse, fox, marmot, carnivores. They come from thebutchering areas located on the promontory and those throwninto the bottom of the paleoravine, confirming the contem-poraneity between the mammoth bone bed and the camp siteoccupation.

- Many hearths have been found in the bone bed (ten hearths inthe 80 m2 of Hangar 2) showing the important need for fire inthe exploitation of the bone bed (meat defrosting, drying orsmoking, skin burning?).

- Artefacts have been found in the mammoth bone bed: blades,bladelets, burins, fragments of cores, generally showinga cutting edge (about 115 artefacts). The use wear analysis(G. Sapozhnikova) has concluded they have been used as meatcutters for butchering activities. Bone artefacts are also present,including an ended part of a young tusk and a retouchedmammoth pelvis used probably to chop a skull into fragments.

7. The relationships between mammoth bone beds andmammoth bone hut settlements in the European UpperPalaeolithic

In the territory of the middle and upper Dnepr basin (andelsewhere), mammoth bone beds have been frequently found:

- Some have not been exploited by human groups (for exampleJouravka, where the bone bed is located not far from a seasonalspecialized site of hunting marmots, or Vilchanka near Lubny),

- Some have not been intensely exploited. This is the case forSevsk near Briansk (Maschenko et al., 2006) and for Berelëkhassociated with a Dyuktai settlement, in eastern Siberia(Pitulko, 2011; Abramova, 1995a), famous natural mammothbone beds, where nevertheless flint artefacts have been foundmixed with the mammoth and other bones by thepaleontologists.

- Some of them are strongly associated with a settlement,located very near to the bone bed.

When looking at the inventory of the Upper Palaeolithic sites ofthe middle and upper Dnepr basin, it is interesting to point out twodifferent types of sites (Iakovleva, 2009a):

- Large settlements with several mammoth bone huts such asGontsy, Kiev-Kirilovskaia, Mézine, Mejiriche, Dobranichivka,Ioudinovo, Elisseevichi 1, 2, Timonovka 1, 2, Suponevo, Bar-maki, and Boujanka 2;

- Seasonal settlements, with no mammoth bone huts, such asBougorok, Jouravka, Fastiv, and Semenivka 1, 2, 3.

Several sites are questionable due to old or too partial excava-tions at a time when the existence of mammoth bone huts was nottotally accepted (before 1950 for Mezinian bone structures) and theaccumulation of mammoth bones was not distinguished betweenhuts and bone beds (Soffer, 1985). Today, the taphonomy of themammoth bones allows easier determination:

- Complete representation of anatomic parts and natural herd:non-exploited bone bed;

- Overrepresentation of ribs, vertebras, distal leg bones, fewartefacts: exploited bone bed;

- Overrepresentation of scapula, pelvis, tusks, skulls, jaws:mammoth bone hut of the settlement;

- Very few often fragmented and burnt mammoth bones:working area of the settlement;

- Pile of entire mammoth bones: pit generally located near thehut in a settlement.

In the literature, the mammoth bone beds located in the bottomof a paleoravine have been often interpreted as not in situ settle-ments. The archaeologist has considered that the artefacts, withoutany spatial structure (concentrations), have slipped by solifluctioninside the ravine. This is the case for Pushkari II, Kurovo, and Novo-Bobovichi, sites which have only been excavated once due to thepoorness of archaeological features and tools. It is not so easy, oftenmany years after the excavations, to revise the interpretations. Apreliminary method is to make a diagram visualizing the two ratios(ribþ vertebraþ leg bones/total bones) versus (scapulaþ pelvisþskullþ tuskþ jaw/total bones) for separating the types of sites.

A second case concerns the sites where the archaeologist haddifficulties in distinguishing between a bone bed and a collapsedhut, for example until 1950 at Kiev-Kirilovskaia or Suponevo, butalso afterwards for northern sites where pleniglacial effectssignificantly disturb the archaeological occupation level, as in Eli-sseevichi (Velichko et al., 1977b) or Timonovka (Velichko et al.,1977a).

A third case concerns the sites where only several huts havebeen excavated, as in Mejiriche (Pidoplitchko, 1969, 1976, 1998),Dobranichevka (Chovkoplass, 1955), and Ioudinovo (Abramova,1995b; Abramova et al., 1997, Abramova and Grigorieva, 1997). Insome cases, the archaeologist has found the bone bed, but thepriority has been given to the more spectacular excavations of thehuts (Pidoplichko at Mejiriche). In other cases, the bone bed has notbeen found for various reasons: rescue excavations for Dobra-nichivka, or geomorphological reasons (Ioudinovo, located verynear to the Desna River).

In Gontsy, the bone bed has been discovered in a ravine verynear to the dwellings on the promontory. The stratigraphy hasdemonstrated a continuous connection between the settlementand the bone bed, thanks to sandy lamination wrapping the lowerlayer and giving the indication of slope, and also the exchange ofartefacts between the two loci (flint artefacts, mammoth bones,bones from other mammals).

8. A peopling system based on a mammoth economy

A new hypothesis is proposed, explaining the major role of themammoth in the system of the Mezinian groups. Near eachsettlement with mammoth bone huts, there was a mammoth bonebed prior to the erection of the dwelling.

The question of the origin of the bone bed is crucial. The actualdata do not allow to choose definitively between the hypothesis ofa natural origin (snow storm, famine) and the hypothesis of huntingwith a technique of killing in situ a herd which has not beendemonstrated (fire, trapping in the deep end of the ravine). Theability of mammoth age profile diagrams to solely discriminatebetween a natural origin and an anthropic origin (see Oliva, 2009for a discussion) is not totally convincing, because in many casesdifferent processes may produce the same age profile diagrams.Inside the bone bed of Gontsy, it is even possible to have a mix ofa unique natural or hunting event at the end of the winter



concerning the total herd, and repeated hunting events during theoccupation of the site concerning solitary individuals.

The presence of a bone bed near and associated with thesettlement has also been documented in the Pavlovian of DolniVestonice (Valoch, 1996) and Milovice (Oliva, 2009) and in theeastern Gravettian of Krakow-Spadzista (Kozlowski, 2003). It isthen useful to wonder if the Pavlovian, eastern Gravettian andMezinian sites do not belong to a more general system specializingin the economy of mammoth. This I stermed the “semi-sedentaritystrategy” (Djindjian, 2009): a large territory of about 100 000 km2,a settlement occupied for eight to ten months and used as a maindwelling, and movements dedicated to seasonal or specializedhunting and to raw material procurement. The food resourcemanagement was mainly centered on the mammoth, those fromthe bone bed and other hunted individuals. Reindeer is present,with rare horse and bison, and very rare rhinoceros andmusk ox, allnot sufficiently numerous to contribute to a food resource ofa settlement during a long time. Fur procurement is also animportant resource with fox, wolverine, wolf, marmot and hare,often at the second rank after the mammoth in the list of individ-uals. Such a system is rare and has a short lifespan in the EuropeanUpper Palaeolithic: Pavlovian (28 000e26000 BP), easternGravettian (24e21000 BP) and Mezinian (15 000e14000 BP).

The geomorphology of the site plays an important role in thelocation of the settlements. The settlements are always located neara ravine, sloping down from the plain (Gontsy, Mejiriche, Kiev-Kirilovskaia, Mezine, etc.) or from the top of a hill (Pavloviansites, Krakow-Spadzista). They are located on the slope and havea large overview of the valley or lakeshores.

The question of the multi-occupation of the sites is associatedwith the question of the exhaustion of the bone bed. The studies ofseasonality based on the presence of fetus of mammoths, reindeerantlers and fur animals reveal a large period of occupation of thesite of Gontsy from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn. Itis possible to consider that the site was abandoned when theresources of the mammoth bone bed are exhausted (food, fuel).Following such a hypothesis, there will be no reoccupation of thesite, explaining the very distinctness of the structures observedduring excavation. Nevertheless, a second reoccupation is noted inseveral sites, in Gontsy, in Mejiriche and in Kiev-Kirilovskaia, butafter a certain time. In Gontsy, there is 20 cm of sterile loessbetween the lower (first occupation) and upper (second occupa-tion) layer. In the ravine, the width between the two layers is 75 cmof sediment, and it was totally filled when the group arrived for thesecond time. A first possible explanation is that the second occu-pation was a seasonal hunting camp or a bivouac, found byopportunism, because the huts, even fallen, emerge from the 20 cmsedimentation, and thus could be reused. A second explanation isthe possible discovery of a new bone bed in the second ravine,allowing the reuse of the site and huts, despite the low probabilityof such an event.

9. Conclusions

In studying the European Upper Palaeolithic, the Mezinian isprobably the best known culture in terms of settlements andterritory (Iakovleva, 2009a). The reason is the good conservation inloess sequences of dwellings built withmammoth bones, which arethe best preserved prehistoric dwelling structures. The mammothbone huts are so spectacular they have been the priority of thearchaeologists (Schovkoplass, Pidoplichko, Abramova) and unfor-tunately again today. However, the real scientific target is theunderstanding of the system at the origin of the settlements and ofthe settlements at the origin of the peopling in a territory, themammoth based economy of the system. Such information may be

only recorded with the excavation of a complete settlement as hasbeen done for the site of Gontsy since 1993, and with the moderntechniques of archaeology. It is then possible to reconstruct not onlyseveral mammoth bone huts and their pits, but the entire settle-ment with the dwellings, pits, hearths, working areas, dumpingareas and butchering areas and their connections between eachother. The major role of the mammoth bone bed as a part of thesettlement has been pointed out in Gontsy, and may be consideredin revisiting the archives concerning all the sites excavated duringthe XXth century in the middle and upper Dnepr basin. The exis-tence of mammoth bone beds for several settlements of thePavlovian and of the eastern Gravettian has been surprising. Forfuture studies, the question of the natural or anthropic or bothorigins of the mammoth bone beds, if the solution is unique, isalways pending.

Acknowledgments

This work is the result of a scientific program of collaborationbetween the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy ofScience of Ukraine and the CNRS UMR 7041 in France: “The Gontsyexcavations in the context of researches of LUP peopling of Dneprbasin”. The work is supported by the program n�204 of the Direc-tion of Archaeology of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs since1994, the project PAI Dnipro n�09862VJ, project Econet n�10148QDand the “Archéologies d’Eurasie” Association.

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