The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

by David Graeber

Research at the Russian site of Yudinovo suggests that ‘mammoth houses’, as they are often called, were not in fact dwellings at all, but monuments in the strict sense: carefully planned and constructed to commemorate the completion of a great mammoth hunt (and the solidarity of the extended hunting group), using whatever durable parts remained once carcasses had been processed for their meat and hides; and later covered with sediment to create a durable marker in the landscape.29 We are talking here about really staggering quantities of meat: for each structure (there were five at Yudinovo), there was enough mammoth to feed hundreds of people for around three months.30 Open-air settlements like Yudinovo, Mezhirich and Kostenki, where such mammoth monuments were erected, often became central places whose inhabitants exchanged amber, marine shells and animal pelts over impressive distances.