The skeletons of three mammoths and tools belonging to their hunters have been uncovered by archaeologists in Brno-Štýřice, close to the city centre in the vicinity of Vídeňská, Polní and Vojtova. According to research leader Lenka Sedláčková of Archaia Brno, the number of bones found and the composition of the material are particularly unique. The 15,000-year old skeletons date from the Early Stone Age.
The archeological study began during the reconstruction of the hot water network in Brno-Štýřice a few years ago. In 2024, excavation started in the park on the corner of Vídeňská and Polní, which was known as a site dating from the Early Stone Age since the middle of the 19th century, but had until now given relatively few notable relics, other than a baby woolly mammoth stool and a few stone artefacts in the area.
A few weeks after these excavations, a new area was located on the north side of Vojtova, where the Old Brno cemetery with the church of St. Wenceslas used to be, and new archeological research began. This turned out to be one of the most successful digs ever in Brno, as archeologists discovered the skeletal remains of mammoths, and the tools of their hunters.
“Our attention was fixed on the place where a larger area, untouched by more recent interventions, has been preserved between the graves,” explained Sedláčková. “Soon crumbling animal bones began to appear under our spatulas. We uncovered two mammoth shoulder blades, a fragment of a femur, an incomplete reindeer antler that was demonstrably once cut by man, another bone nearby, this time a tibia, and several stone artefacts.”
This year’s discoveries were connected to the era of the last mammoth hunters in Moravia, 15,000 years ago, thanks to cooperation with the Anthropos Institute and the Center for Cultural Anthropology of the Moravian Regional Museum, who have been monitoring and examining every excavation around Vídeňská with the Archaia Brno company for 15 years.
“Thanks to older research, we know that along with mammoths, people also hunted other animals here, such as rhinoceroses, horses, reindeer, wolves or even foxes. Thus, we can speak with certainty about a fairly extensive settlement of Palaeolithic people, who repeatedly returned to this place to lie in wait for animals going to join the nearby river. They then processed their catches with stone tools that they made here,” explained Sedláčková.
“It was a sight for the gods – such a find in the middle of the city, among buildings!,” added Sedláčková. “And with each newly opened area, the finds increased. Mammoth bones were literally everywhere – a total mammoth paradise.”
In order to avoid the bones being left in a depository, an exhibition in the Anthropos MZM Pavilion will be open to the people of Brno and its visitors to come and see these unique finds as early as 2026.
