Standing at around six foot tall, the Gravettian men of Europe were by far the tallest humans of the prehistoric era.

The Ice Age giants were known for hunting woolly mammoths and have even been linked to the demise of the famous species.

Now scientists believe their taste for mammoth meat could explain why men living in parts of east and western Europe are the tallest in the world.

Gravettian men of Europe were by far the tallest humans of the prehistoric era. The Ice Age giants were known for hunting woolly mammoths (pictured is an artist's impression)

CULTURE OF GRAVETTIAN PEOPLE Gravettian culture flourished 31,000 – 22,000 years ago in the European Upper Paleolithic era. The phase was characterised by a stone-tool industry with small pointed blades used for big-game hunting, such as bison, horse, reindeer and mammoth. It is divided into two regional groups: the western Gravettian, mostly known from cave sites in France, and the eastern Gravettian, with sites for mammoth hunters on the plains of central Europe and Russia. The culture appeared at a time when Neanderthals were being displaced by modern humans, who had entered Europe from Africa and the Middle East some 15,000 years before. During this process, Neanderthals retreated to the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. The Gravettian people are famous for the many Venus figurines they created, which are widely distributed in Europe. Another famous prehistoric discovery of this period are the hand stencils in Cosquer Cave close to Marseilles. Advertisement

Men from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands, Croatia, and Montenegro are the world's tallest, averaging at around six foot (1.84m).

Researchers have discovered their stature may be a 'genetic legacy' of the prehistoric Gravettian people.

The Gravettian people were a group of hunter gatherers who lived in central and Eastern Europe between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago.

Researchers believe these people not only ate meat from woolly mammoths but also used their bone fragments as fuel for their fires.

'The Gravettian is the most important prehistoric culture of the Upper Paleolithic Europe and is sometimes called "the culture of mammoth hunters",' Dr Pavel Grasgruber of Masaryk University told Seeker.

He believes a reliance on mammoth meat, coupled with little competition from other humans, led to Gravettian men evolving to be taller than other early humans.

While Gravettian men stood between five foot ten inches and six foot two inches, Maya people from the same era only reached an average height of five foot two inches.

He said: 'I suspect that this big game specialization associated with a surplus of high-quality proteins and low population density created environmental conditions leading to the selection of exceptionally tall males.'

The large height of Gravettian men is believed to be linked in part to a group of genes called the Y haplogroup I-M170.

A haplotype is a group of genes that are passed down together from one parent.

This reconstruction of a Gravettian shelter built from mammoth bones is based on those found close to Mezhyrich in the Ukraine

WORLD'S TALLEST COUNTRIES 1. Netherlands - 6.03ft (1.838m) 2. Montenegro - 6.01ft (1.832m) 3. Denmark - 6.0ft (1.826m) 4. Norway - 5.98ft (1.824m) 5. Serbia - 5.97ft (1.82m) Advertisement

'We know that the oldest sample carrying I-M170 belongs to a man from the Gravettian culture who lived some 33,000 years ago in Southern Italy,' he said.

As part of his research, he has discovered that the same group of genes are commonly part of the DNA of tall men living in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He believes the unusually tall height of men living in Bosnia and Herzegovina could be the result of the I-M170 genes being passed down over thousands of years.

His theory is backed up his research into the heights of young men living in different parts of the country.

Being tall is normally associated with having a good diet and a healthy lifestyle.

But men living in the region are taller than average despite the fact they have relatively poor diets.

Political division of Bosnia and Herzegovina and localities in which the researchers measured the heights of young men

Regional averages of male height in Bosnia and Herzegovina (based on the self-reported place of residence), including average male height in individual 27 towns

This indicates the reason they are so tall is largely down to genetics, according to Dr Grasgruber.

'Because both nutritional standards and socioeconomic conditions are still deeply suboptimal, the most likely explanation of this exceptional height lies in specific genetic factors associated with the spread of Y haplogroup I-M170,' he concludes in a research paper.

The research paper was published in Royal Society of Open Science.