A rare site of woolly mammoth remains revealed how ancient humans behaved when it came to hunting. In Langmannersdorf an der Perschling, Lower Austria, scientists unearthed remains of five enormous 25,000-year-old woolly mammoths, which appeared to have been hunted and butchered by ancient humans. 

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They also found stone tools and signs of intensive butchering. Everything was in a small area of the Perschling Valley, which shows the hunting practice of early humans during the late Pleistocene. 

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A team from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), led by Marc Händel of the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI), led the excavation work. Their research was part of the European project MAMBA (Exploring Mammoth Bone Accumulations in Central Europe). 

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The research team discovered stone tools strewn about and the mammoth bones of multiple individuals stacked together in one of the two zones. They found many bones with scars and markings from human instruments, indicating that they had been butchered. 

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The crew discovered the remains of at least three different mammoths in the second zone. Apart from the bones, they discovered the broken and complete remains of the mammoth's massive tusks grouped together, indicating that Paleolithic humans were probably processing the ivory of the mammoths. The archaeologists proposed that spearheads could have been made from this ivory. 

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'Exceeded our expectations'

In a statement published on March 19, Marc Händel, an archaeologist at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), said, "The fact that we found not just individual bones here, but intensively used areas in which several animals were processed, has more than exceeded our expectations."

Herds of mammoths still roamed the landscapes of Central Europe shortly before the peak of the last Ice Age. They used the Perschling Valley near Langmannersdorf as a migration and grazing area. 

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The latest find suggests that people of this time had a thorough understanding of animal habits, which they applied to hunting expeditions.

The statement revealed that the aim of the project is to learn more about human hunting. The researchers also analysed how ancient humans used mammoths.

They also trying to understand the development of mammoth populations. It also investigates climatic and ecological changes between 35,000 and 25,000 years ago. 

(With inputs from agencies)