More about the Ice Age mammoth bone structures built around 25,000 years ago. Go to https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/60-mammoths-house-russian-180974426/ … where we can see what excited the Guardian journalist. It is a 40 feet diameter building north of the Black Sea, and half way to Moscow. What was its purpose? Well, food scraps, including vegetables, were picked from the floor, and it is thought they might have been processing mammoth meat – but that is a guess. However, the large size of the structure suggests more than a sleeping and heating den. To build it took a lot of time – a community project. It may also have had some sort of ritual enactment.
Mammoth bone buildings have been found right across eastern Europe – but usually on a smaller scale to Kostenki. They have been dated as far back as 22,000 years ago, well within the Late Glacial Maximum, and as recently as 14,000 years ago, firmly between the Oldest and the Younger Dryas events. In other words, they outlived the Late Glacial Maximum. Charcoal found at Kostenki indicates the use of wood – and trees growing somewhere nearby. There is also evidence of fires being lit, inside the structures. Was it to generate heat, as a survival tactic in a very cool world. Or was fire itself venerated – as a result of landscape fires. Scientists are not sure if the mammoths were hunted or scavenged from a site of mass death. Kotenski is composed of around 60 mammoths, although only certain bones were chosen. Kostenki has several mammoth dwellings, walls, the enclosure, or circle of bones, pits, working areas, hearths and dumping sites.
The same story is at https://www.thoughtco.com/mezhirich-mammoth-bone-settlement-171805 … which is about another mammoth house structure – at Mezhirich, in the middle of the Dneiper valley in the Ukraine. Not far from Kiev. It is dated between 15 and 14 thousand year ago.Interestingly, burnt bones were found in hearths at the settlem.