In the summer of 2022, excavations were carried out at one of the most famous Upper Palaeolithic site in Central Europe - Dolní Věstonice (southern Moravia). This research were led by M. Novák and J. Wilczyński, and in addition to employees from the Czech Republic and Poland, as well as students from the University of Olomouc and the University of Exeter. The research lasted over two and a half months, and during it over 50 square meters of the site were explored. This research was supplemented by a short, two-week excavation carried out in the summer of 2023. During the research, a local depression filled with Pleistocene sediments containing numerous remains of a woolly mammoth, reindeer and wolf was uncovered. These remains were accompanied by a few lithic artefacts, including blades of retouched tools. In 2023, research was conducted at the Kraków Spadzista site (Poland). This research were led by J. Wilczyński with employees from Poland, Slovakia, USA and Switzerland as well as students from the University of Olomouc and the University of Exeter. The research covered over 20 square meters and provided several thousand flint artefacts and animal remains - mainly woolly mammoth. During the field research, a number of geological samples were taken from both Dolni Vestonice and Kraków Spadzista. The fieldwork planned and carried out in 2022 and 2023 is crucial for understanding the human-mammoth relationship in their local paleoenvironmental context. At the same timethe obtained materials will be used to reconstruct changes occurring both within hunter-gatherer communities and co-occurring mammoth populations. In parallel with the excavations, the team involved in the implementation of the MAMBA grant collects samples for ancient DNA research, paleodietary studies, migrations and radiocarbon dating.To date, 322 samples have been collected from over twenty sites located in Central Europe (mainly Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland). These activities were carried out within three organized joint research trips, in which a significant part of the team involved in the implementation of the MAMBA project took part. At the same time, in 2023, during the WOGH conference in Krakow, the first workshop-type meeting was organized in order to discuss in more detail the sampling procedure (which will sometimes be examined by several specialists simultaneously) and to present the preliminary results of our studies.
