25,000-Year-Old Structure Built of the Bones of 60 Mammoths

Iakovleva (Yakovleva), for God's sake...

> In Drachenloch, however, not only were there [crude stone] walls, but behind these walls were found accumulations of bear bones — the long bones of the legs and more or less complete skulls. The pattern was very consistent. Where such walls were present, bones were present. Where they were absent, bones were rare along the cave walls.

These and other deliberate-looking accumulations of bones (including apparent crude “chests” of limestone slabs enclosing more bones) led Bachler to suggest the idea of a prehistoric cave bear worshipping cult. But a counterargument suggests this explanation is unnecessary. It might just be bears being bears, no cult required.

> When cave bears entered a cave to hibernate, they began by scratching nests into the cave fill. In the process, bones and small rocks were pushed aside, often falling into crevices among the fallen blocks. This had two effects. First, it helped to build up accumulations of bones in natural cavities among rocks or among piles of rocks. Second, it protected the bones that did enter such interstices from further trampling and, if they were buried there, from weathering and decay. It is perfectly natural, therefore, that modern excavators should find concentrations of bones in cavities surrounded by rock. Moreover, because further weathering of the cave roof naturally produced subsequent roof fall, it is perfectly normal that such cavities would be covered by slabs of greater or lesser size.

I wonder if something similar happened here. Obviously, the lack of a cave is an issue. But it’s a funny connection to something I read randomly a few months ago.

Cave bear stuff from https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-cult-of-the-cav... which is also a fun read if you like archaeologists sniping at each other.

I could imagine their linguist equivalent of "Bro, I'm going to build this one just from Mammoth bones, it'll be freakin' huge. C'mon, it'll be awesome!"

Couldn't it be this has been a similar behavior, people coming to a this site and just found 60 remains and build something with it?

I'm glad people at the Smithsonian get to have fun writing intro sentences like that.