Archeologists have discovered enormous piles of wooly mammoth bones dating back to the end of the last ice age in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly along the Dnieper and Desna rivers in modern Ukraine and Russia.

The remains of at least 30 mammoths have been found in one structure, which have been interpreted as the remains of houses. The wooly mammoth is the most famous of all the Ice Age megafauna and was adapted to life on the cold grassy steppe. Paleolithic people hunted mammoths as an essential part of their diet and built an economy around killing them.

The killing of just one mammoth could feed a community for several weeks. The structures are found at seven or eight sites in Russia and Ukraine, with the oldest and largest structure found at Kostenki 11, which dates back to 25,000 years ago and contains the remains of at least 64 mammoths. The site of Yudinovo has five structures estimated to be made up of 129 mammoths, and they are about 18,000 years old.