Ice age Ukrainians ate more than mammoth: boar, deer and bear remains found

People who periodically returned to the Mezhyrich site in central Ukraine during the last Ice Age relied on a varied diet rather than mammoth meat alone, according to researchers who found remains of boar, deer and bear alongside the site’s famous mammoth bone dwellings.

The site features four circular structures built from hundreds of mammoth bones and tusks, first excavated between 1966 and 1974. A new study led by Wei Chu of Leiden University, published on the Open Research Europe platform, dated the largest structure, MBS4, to between roughly 18,248 and 17,764 years old, within the harshest phase of the last Ice Age following the Last Glacial Maximum.

Despite the apparently brief periods when the shelter was actually occupied, the surrounding site shows signs of intensive activity: pits filled with tools and animal remains, and distinct areas for butchering carcasses and crafting stone implements. Researchers have described the site as a kind of economical settlement unit, tightly organised around the practical demands of survival in a harsh environment.

The radiocarbon evidence indicates the structure saw only a handful of separate visits rather than continuous habitation, even though the wider dating window suggested it could theoretically span up to 429 years.