Mobility of people and goods during the Upper Paleolithic has proven difficult to
reconstruct given the relative rareness of remains. Nevertheless, archaeological contexts
like the Late Pleistocene horizon of Borsuka Cave (Southern Poland) represent a unique
opportunity to explore patterns of objects' transportation across Central Europe.
We investigated the origin of four ornaments made of European elk (Alces alces L.)
incisors recovered at Borsuka Cave - the oldest known burial site in Poland, possibly
a child grave. Laser-ablation plasma source mass spectrometric analyses of trace elements
and Sr isotopic compositions revealed that one elk was roaming within a geologically
uniform area while the others changed their pastures during their lifetimes. The non-local
origin of the elk teeth is inferred from their exotic Sr isotopic compositions and
the lack of evidence for the presence of elk in this territory during the Pleistocene.
Instead, the elks' Sr isotopic composition show good agreement with sites near the
Austria-Slovakia border region and northern Hungary, similar to 250km away from the
study site. We argue that the artefacts were most likely brought to Borsuka Cave by
humans or by a network of exchange, so far never reported in the time range 32.5-28.8
ka cal BP for Southern Poland.
