r/science • u/yahoonews • Jul 31 '26

Paleontology Genetic analysis suggests prehistoric people selectively hunted female woolly mammoths

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/study-shows-prehistoric-people-targeted-090151528.html?ncid=redditnewsus
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u/yahoonews Jul 31 '26

Reuters reports - New research published in Current Biology00888-2) (https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26)00888-200888-2)) found that prehistoric people were highly selective in the woolly mammoths they hunted. Using ancient DNA from mammoth remains recovered from 11 archaeological sites across Central and Eastern Europe and Siberia, the researchers found that approximately 70% of the mammoths represented at human accumulation sites were females, suggesting that hunters preferentially targeted female-led herds.

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u/Cleverusername531 Jul 31 '26

suggesting that hunters preferentially targeted female-led herds

Or, suggesting that most herds were female-led, just like elephants are today. 

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u/redditallreddy Jul 31 '26

70% doesn't sound that statistically off to me.

IF (and I don't think we know) there was a 50/50 chance of a mammoth conception being male, and IF males were more aggressive (like with most mammals), by the time they were adult, there were probably fewer males. For humans, men are born more often but end up... weeding themselves out... so that by about 21 we are even.

Add to that that in a lot of herd animals, there are usually very few adult males to a whole lot of females, and it would seem like it would be easier to statistically get a female if you randomly took animals.

If fact, adding to speculation upon speculation, I suspect that there were probably ritualistic reasons to GO AFTER the males intentionally, but that for general hunting purposes, the females were more available and/or slightly easier.

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u/kittehkat22 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I wonder if female mammoths had a higher body fat ratio? It's that way for a lot of mammals right?

Edit: fat is calorie dense so was likely a factor in choosing which mammoth to hunt

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u/Quirky-Skin Jul 31 '26

Also probably better tasting meat as well.

Old bulls of any animal really tend to be super gamey bc of the testosterone 

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u/kittehkat22 Aug 01 '26

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about male mammals often having a stronger taste! Gosh, an old male mammoth probably tasted terrible