Woolly mammoths.

These were not mythological creatures to the people at Yana RHS.

They were meat.

They were ivory.

They were hides for shelter and clothing.

The bones and ivory in the Yana archaeological layer come from multiple mammoth individuals — not just fossil remains that happened to be lying around, but animals that the community hunted and butchered, leaving behind a record of successful kills and careful resource extraction.

Woolly rhinoceroses — the same animal whose horn had first drawn attention to the site — were another large prey species.