A study by archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, led by paleontologist Pavel Nikolskiy and archaeologist Vladimir Pitulko, may be shedding new light on the relationship between Man and mammoth in Ancient Siberia. They believe that approximately 33,500 to 31,500 years ago, the Siberians killed the mammoth mainly for their valuable ivory.
     As the area is mainly frozen tundra, sources of materials for weapons and tool production were virtually nonexistent, except for the ivory in the tusks. The study has centred around one particular site, at Yana, where evidence of tool production has been radiocarbon dated over a period of 2,000 years. In this respect the Yana site goes against the trend of most other evidence, from a wide variety of European and Asian sites, which point in the direction of hunting for food, skin and fat as the main objective

Edited from ScienceNews (12 June 2013)