Seasonal dynamics of mammoth hunting: why, when, how

Abstract

Introduction. Mammoth hunting is usually considered permanent. However, herds of mammoths and lonely male performed annual submeridional seasonal migrations with a length of up to 500- 600 km. Therefore, due to the relative settled population in the upper paleolithic, the annual period of mammoth hunting was in this case very brief, fitting in two short intervals in the spring and autumn - the passage of the valley controlled by the hunters of several family groups. Materials and methods. According to M. V. Sablin, about the age of killing the mammoth's cubs, two seasons of hunting in the Middle Desna are reconstructed for the sites of Yudinovo and Eliseevichi, approximately in May and October. Results. Hunting did not have the nature of the kill of a whole herd or its significant part. Only separate animals were seized. If we allow the similarity of hunting strategies, this indirectly confirms the isotopic analysis of the mammoth bones in the parking lots of hunters on the large proboscidean (Clovis) in North America. They could beat the beast on the ―established‖ migration path, possibly on a migration trek across the river. The seasonal rhythm of the Eastern Magdalenian hunters in the mammoth was inherited in our opinion for the hunters of reindeer in the final Paleolithic, genetically connected with the Eastern Magdalen. Conclusion. The author comes to the conclusion that with the onset of sharp climatic fluctuations and a hydrological catastrophe associated with the melting of permafrost and the concomitant degradation of the feeding landscape and the possibilities of free movement along it, the migration routes of mammoth herds should have shifted noticeably to the north, following the retreating periglacial zone. Following the mammoths, a population specialized in hunting these animals should have followed. The descendants of this population – reindeer hunters of the final Paleolithic - inherited the seasonal rhythm and strategy of the previous mammoth hunt, transferring them to a new migrating hunting object. Their spring and autumn settlements also formed along the migration routes of reindeer, where many crossed large rivers during their migrations to winter and summer pastures.