Mammoth Bone Tents

Mammoth Bone Tents

By Job Hernandez

Context: Nearby resources

The Paleolithic era (Old Stone Age) was hard due to the weather and to other predators. Humans used a lot of flint to make spears to hunt mammoths that were plenty and to get animal sinew to make string and other materials. They ate a lot of meat and looked for foods with fat and sugar like berries.

Context: Climate

Context: Physical location

Mammoth bone Tents were usually found in Ukraine by the Dnieper river and by the mountains.

In the paleolithic era it was really cold. There were glaciers carrying huge amounts of water and were from 1500 to 3000 meters deep. All of the northern seas were frozen. At this time the land bridge between Asia and the Americas was completely covered by walls of ice making it hard to cross. The climate was cold and windy with snow mostly everywhere. The mammoth bone Tents insulated the people and kept all the warm inside so they were ideal.

Context: Historical date

Context: Ways of living

Mammoth bone Tents were carbon dated. Most of the sites were dated to be around 15,000 years old and later in the Paleolithic era.

In this time humans were hunters and gatherers and were mostly hunting large animals such as mammoths, and collecting berries and plants. People were usually nomadic but since the weather was cold they tried to stay in one place to stop walking through the cold.

Artifact Bio: Why is it Significant?

Mammoth Bone tents are significant to big history because it was one of the first houses that was constructed by humans themselves. This leads to architecture and construction today.

Big History Connection

Homes - people evolved over time from sleeping out in the wild to sleeping caves then to making tents.

Tools - The people the built the mammoth bone tents used tools to kill and dismantle the mammoths are tools that kept the humans warm.

Artifact Bio: How old do we think it is?

The mammoth bone tent is estimated to be 15,000 years old

Artifact bio: What was found nearby

Big History Connection

Near the bone tents archeologist found tools for sticking the tent into the floor and Fur hides were found inside the tent like fox, wolf, and bearskins. These hides were often used for bedding.

Complexity - At this point they were already using collective learning and they were making and thinking of more complex things they could communicate and had a language.

Thesis

Big History Connection

Building - This also helped us learn how to build stronger houses and more complex structure to pass on to other generations.

Artifact Bio: Were was it found?

Mammoth bone tents were a great home that insulated people and were perfect to keep them warm in the cold winters. It helped them expand their knowledge and teach it to other generations.

Some mammoth bones were found at Mezin, near Tchernogov, that provided a supporting structure for a Paleolithic hut for a mammoth hunting society. The tent was made of mammoth hides and was probably carpeted with mammoth hides.

Content Slide

Artifact Bio: Object knowledge

1: slide

2: content slide

3 - 7: artifact bio

8 - 12: context

13: Big history conection

Conclusion

Big History Connection

Mammoth bone tents are part of the past and they helped shape today. Mammoth bone dwellings were ideal for the lives of people in the Paleolithic era. It expanded the complexity of humans and expanded to later years to make even better homes. Even today we are improving our homes and the way we live.

the tents helped humans survive by keeping them warm. if there were not any mammoth bone tents maybe there would be mammoths but there might not be as many humans.

All of these connections are important because without them things in the future wouldn't have happened and the human race wouldn't of been more complex and knowledgeable.

Mammoth Bone Tents are tents that early humans used as houses. They hunted mammoths and used their skin and bones to make tents to live in. They first dug out a burrow in the ground, then they got the big bones of the mammoth to support skin of the mammoth. Then they used the small bones at the bottom of the tent to prevent the wind from blowing inside the tent.

Sources

"Cultural Stratigraphy at Mezhirich, An Upper Palaeolithic Site In Ukraine With Multiple Occupations." <i>Cultural Stratigraphy at Mezhirich, An Upper Palaeolithic Site In Ukraine With Multiple Occupations</i>. Web. 2 Apr. 2015. &lt;http://www.academia.edu/323745/Cultural_Stratigraphy_at_Mezhirich_An_Upper_Palaeolithic_Site_In_Ukraine_With_Multiple_Occupations&gt;.

"Stone Age Habitats." Stone Age Habitats. Web. 2 Apr. 2015. <http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/StoneAge/Habitats/>.

"Bones for Stones." - Springer. Web. 2 Apr. 2015. <http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-1112-4_8>.