Description du projet
Étudier les collections d’os de mammouth en Europe centrale
Les grandes collections d’os de mammouths découvertes en Europe centrale intriguent les paléontologues depuis le XIXe siècle. Malgré des années de recherche sur des sites de la région des Carpates occidentales, on ne comprend toujours pas clairement pour quelle raison des os de mammouths ont été ainsi entassés. Financé par le Conseil européen de la recherche, le projet MAMBA vise à déterminer comment et pourquoi ces restes de mammouths ont été accumulés, et quelle était leur utilité pour les sociétés de chasseurs-cueilleurs il y a entre 25 000 et 35 000 ans. Il comparera les déplacements chronogéographiques des populations d’hominidés et de mammouths à l’aide d’analyses génétiques et isotopiques avancées. Le projet permettra de mieux comprendre le comportement des sociétés paléolithiques et leur capacité d’adaptation aux changements climatiques et environnementaux.
Objectif
The discovery of large accumulations of woolly mammoth remains together with Upper Palaeolithic artefacts has fascinated both researchers and the general public since the 19th century. 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. This project focuses on the mammoth bone accumulations found in the West Carpathian forelands and seeks to establish why they formed and their function for hunter-gatherer groups 35,000-25,000 years ago – a period of major techno-cultural and environmental change in approaching the Last Glacial Maximum. For the first time we will study materials covering the full chronological range of this archaeological phenomenon, considering both existing collections alongside new fieldwork at the key sites of Dolní Věstonice I, Kraków Spadzista and Langmannersdorf.
Site-specific signals of human-mammoth interaction within their local palaeoenvironmental context will be used to investigate chrono-spatial changes in both mammoth populations and hunter-gatherer societies. We will employ standardised field and laboratory protocols that utilise recent methodological and technological advances in ancient DNA research, stable isotope studies, radiometric dating, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and palaeodemographic modelling.
The resulting dataset will allow an integrated investigation of the formation of mammoth bone accumulations and produce a statistically analysable dataset expected to reveal the interactions between human and mammoth populations in Central Europe in the context of palaeoenvironmental changes. This will have great impact not only for Upper Palaeolithic research in Central Europe, but will on a general scale also contribute to an improved understanding of human behaviour, cultural developments, and human adaptation to dynamically changing climatic and environmental conditions.
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitution d’accueil
31016 CRACOW
Pologne