Mammoth ivory was the most suitable osseous raw material for the production of Late Pleistocene big game projectile points

2019/02/19 by Sebastian J. Pfeifer, Wolfram Hartramph, Ralf‐Dietrich Kahlke +1 · 28 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #African elephant #Antler #Archaeology #Big game #Cephalopods and Marine Biology #Geography #Geology #Mammoth #Paleontology #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Pleistocene #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Projectile point

paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41598-019-38779-1

published in Scientific Reports 9(1), 2303 (Nature Portfolio)

openalex publication_date 2019/02/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Late Pleistocene societies throughout the northern hemisphere used mammoth and mastodon ivory not only for art and adornment, but also for tools, in particular projectile points. A comparative analysis of the mechanical properties of tusk dentine from woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and African elephant (Loxodonta africana) reveals similar longitudinal stiffness values that are comparable to those of cervid antler compacta. The longitudinal bending strength and work of fracture of proboscidean ivory are very high owing to its substantial collagen content and specific microstructure. In permafrost, these properties can be fully retained for thousands of years. Owing to the unique combination of stiffness, toughness and size, ivory was obviously the most suitable osseous raw material for massive projectile points used in big game hunting.

Citations

• Possible evidence of mammoth hunting during the Epigravettian at Yudinovo, Russian Plain
• Pleistocene to Holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoth
• Crack deflection processes—I. Theory
• The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic Before the Last Glacial Maximum
• North American Proboscideans: Mammoths: The state of Knowledge, 2003
• Evidence from the Yana Palaeolithic site, Arctic Siberia, yields clues to the riddle of mammoth hunting
• Nanoscale chemical tomography of buried organic–inorganic interfaces in the chiton tooth
• Biological materials: Structure and mechanical properties
• The pattern and process of mammoth evolution in Eurasia
• Mammoth ivory technologies in the Upper Palaeolithic: a case study based on the materials from Yana RHS, Northern Yana-Indighirka lowland, Arctic Siberia
• Pleistocene vertebrates of the Yukon Territory

Cited by

• Woolly mammoth [wikipedia]