Mezhyrich’s mammoth bone shelters were used briefly, not year-round: study

The famous mammoth bone dwellings at Mezhyrich in central Ukraine were likely used only briefly rather than as continuously inhabited settlements, according to a new dating study led by Wei Chu of Leiden University, published on the Open Research Europe platform.

The largest of four circular structures at the site, known as MBS4, was dated to between roughly 18,248 and 17,764 years old, placing its construction and use within the harshest phase of the last Ice Age, just after the Last Glacial Maximum. Researchers reached this timeline by dating the remains of about a dozen small animals recovered from layers in and around the dwellings, rather than the mammoth bones themselves — resolving decades of uncertainty after earlier attempts had produced ages ranging from roughly 19,000 to 12,000 years old.

The radiocarbon evidence from in and around MBS4 overlapped so closely that no clear gaps appeared in the record, a pattern the researchers said points to a relatively brief period of use, possibly no more than a handful of separate visits, even though the wider dating window suggested the structure could theoretically have been associated with the site for up to 429 years.

The researchers concluded that these bone-built shelters functioned as practical solutions for survival rather than permanent settlements.