Serikov Yu.B.

Key words: find from Lugovskoye, mammoth hunting, “mammoth cemetery”, carrion, gathering of bones and bodies of diseased mammoths.
The article analyzes the different viewpoints concerning the possibility of mammoth hunting in the Paleolithic. The issue has become especially acute in the light of the find from Lugovskoye (environs of Khanty-Mansiysk), which is a mammoth’s vertebra showing traces of damage from a hafted tool. Analysis of different aspects of the interaction between humans and mammoth shows that mammoth hunting appears to have taken place in crisis situations only, and the targeted specimens were those already weakened by disease or wounds.