The Mizyn mammoth ivory figurines (a set of 18 female figures carved from mammoth tusk roughly 18,000 years ago) were deliberately engraved using the natural growth patterns of the ivory itself, according to research published in the journal Heritage Science. Ice Age craftspeople at the Mizyn site in Ukraine did not simply carve into the tusk: they studied it, and let its internal geometry guide their art.
What the Growth Rings Reveal About Mizyn Mammoth Ivory Figurines
The research team, drawing on specialists from the UK, Germany, Norway and Ukraine, used high-resolution microscopic analysis and 3D digital modelling to examine the figurines’ surfaces. What they found was that the carvers had explicitly incorporated Schreger and Owen lines (the natural growth rings found in mammoth tusks) into the surface engravings of the figures.
According to Archiqoo, eleven of the figurines carry patterns that include zigzags, parallel lines, chevrons and meanders. These are not random decorative choices: the research shows they trace directly to the organic geometry already present in the raw material. The craftspeople, in effect, found the pattern before they cut it.
Sci.News reports that the figurines date to between 18,800 and 17,400 years ago, placing their creation across a span of roughly 1,400 years during a period of intense cold. That timeframe sits against a broader backdrop the researchers flag: a gap of 1,000 to 3,000 years in the production of human figurines across Europe, coinciding with the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest peak of the last Ice Age.
An Eastern European Artistic Tradition That Stood Apart
‘This discovery offers an extraordinary window into how Paleolithic peoples perceived and engaged with their material world,’ said Dr Aimée Little, from the University of York‘s department of archaeology. ‘Identifying visual evidence of how mammoths were integrated into artistic traditions, both through the use of their ivory and the deliberate inscription of its natural patterns, represents a genuine breakthrough in our understanding of prehistoric art and material culture.’
Her colleague Dr Andrew Needham drew out the geographical significance. ‘When figurine-making re-emerged around 18,000 years ago, it began earlier in Eastern Europe than in the West,’ he explained. ‘While later Western European styles also featured abstracted female forms, none reproduced the internal tusk patterns seen at Mizyn. This indicates that Ice Age artists in Eastern Europe forged their own independent artistic path rather than simply following trends from Western Europe.’
That finding directly challenges an older assumption. Dr Dmytro Kiosak, from the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology in Germany, believes the evidence pushes back against the long-held idea that ancient art evolved in a straight line from basic to complex forms. The Mizyn figurines suggest something more lateral: different communities developing distinct visual languages in parallel, shaped in part by the materials at hand.
The work carries an added urgency. Dr Little noted that access to the physical artefacts at the National Museum of History of Ukraine in Kyiv has been limited because of the ongoing war in Ukraine, making digital scanning not merely convenient but essential to their preservation and continued study. The artefacts were recorded as part of heritage preservation efforts led by Ukrainian NGO Archaic.
The research team is candid that questions remain, particularly around the spiritual or ritualistic purposes the figurines may have served. Several theories exist, and the current study does not settle them. What it does establish is the mechanics of the artistry itself: how the makers saw the material, and how that perception shaped what they made.
‘We are optimistic that our future digital research will shed more light on the emergence and development of artistic expression in Europe, showing an even more complex, and intriguing picture than we have now,’ said Dr Simon Radchenko, from the University of Stavanger in Norway. With the physical objects now partly inaccessible and the digital record still being built, that future research will depend on the scanning work already completed under difficult conditions.
