People built bone circles at the edge of ice sheets | Hacker News Reader

People built bone circles at the edge of ice sheets

arstechnica.com

94 pointsdiodorus17 comments

Assuming mammoths behaved like modern elephants [1], it could have been to lure and entrap living mammoth wishing to commemorate their dead. Therein, slaughter. The emotional impact of being surrounded by ancestors might have made it easier to kill them.

You'd just need to leave or find a carcass out in the open. Over the seasons, you'd gradually move it closer to the killing ground.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/08/elephants-mo...

Probably a hunting camp. Would explain the fact that the bone circles were often occupied but not a permanent shelter, and the large amount of mammoth bones.

Their permanent settlement would have likely been in a more sheltered spot, while the camp would serve as base for expeditions to hunt mammoths, then they'd be broken down and taken back to their permanent settlement.

Perhaps. This bloke, https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/apryor/sup... says:

“In a future article, we will argue that their function as food-storage facilities should be given further consideration,”

Refrigeration ?

Interesting idea. Lots of meat from a kill, need to store it, but also protect it from preditors

This seems like the obvious case. They could probably excavate large areas of ice for mass refrigeration with ease.

There are many ways to refrigerate with snow around—everything from burying to immersing in animal fat to curing. I’d guess this was intended at least in part for regular human interaction, e.g. a reliable hunting camp.

Which makes me wonder when people figured out that refrigeration was a good idea. Presumably they noticed that food out in the sun went bad sooner and took it from there.

Or ritual, perhaps.

That's the lazy archeologist explanation. What was this building? A temple! What was the purpose of these artifacts? A ritual! And so on for everything.

I now believe is just code for "we don't have a clue yet", but growing up, it gave me the wrong impression that acient societies were praying all day long.

It's likely that rituals were they way they structured complex activities. Put the food beneath the snow and sing a song, using prescribed steps, so the gods will preserve it. Bandage a wound, put a poultice on it and sing a song, so the spirits will make it heal. Again, using prescribed steps handed over from generation to generation, because they knew it worked but didn't know why.

I like to think it's a mammoth-bone yurt. Kind of silly, but it actually fits all the data (that I know about.)

Probably helped them predict severity of winter since they didn’t have the weather channel. Or maybe free water when it melts?

Could they have provided protection from other predators?

Edit: That was a straight question!

I agree why else build a circular wall but to keep animals and enemies out unless they had animal skins draped and that was the walls to support the roof?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com