Dolni Vestonice Research Articles

Bird remains from Dolni Vestonice I and Predmosti I (Pavlovian, the Czech Republic)

Dolní Vĕstonice I and Předmostí I, two large and important Pavlovian sites in Moravia (Czech Republic), have yielded extraordinary assemblages of lithic artefacts as well as animal remains. In this paper, the bird remains from both these sites are analysed in terms of their species, anatomical representation and bone fragmentation. The large share of tetraonid and raven (Corvus corax) remains, and the overrepresentation of ulnas among the raven bones, are similarities shared by both sites included in the study, and by the other sites from Pavlovian times.

What constitutes Homo sapiens? Morphology versus received wisdom.

Although Linnaeus coined Homo sapiens in 1735, it was Blumenbach forty years later who provided the first morphological definition of the species. Since humans were not then allowed to be ante-Diluvian, his effort applied to the genus, as well. After the Feldhofer Grotto Neanderthal disproved this creationist notion, and human-fossil hunting became legitimate, new specimens were allocated either to sapiens or new species within Homo, or even to new species within new genera. Yet as these taxonomic acts reflected the morphological differences between specimens, they failed to address the question: What constitutes H. sapiens? When in 1950 Mayr collapsed all human fossils into Homo, he not only denied humans a diverse evolutionary past, he also shifted the key to identifying its species from morphology to geological age - a practice most paleoanthropologists still follow. Thus, for example, H. erectus is the species that preceded H. sapiens, and H. sapiens is the species into which H. erectus morphed. In order to deal with a growing morass of morphologically dissimilar specimens, the non-taxonomic terms "archaic" (AS) and "anatomically modern" (AMS) were introduced to distinguish between the earlier and later versions of H. sapiens, thereby making the species impossible to define. In attempting to disentangle fact from scenario, I begin from the beginning, trying to delineate features that may be distinctive of extant humans (ES), and then turning to the fossils that have been included in the species. With the exception of Upper Paleolithic humans - e.g. from Cro-Magnon, Dolni Vestonice, Mladeč - I argue that many specimens regarded as AMS, and all those deemed AS, are not H. sapiens. The features these AMS do share with ES suggest the existence of a sapiens clade. Further, restudy of near-recent fossils, especially from southwestern China (∼11-14.5 ka), reinforces what discoveries such as H. floresiensis indicate: "If it's recent, it's not necessarily H. sapiens".

New technologies for plant food processing in the Gravettian

“Plant Resources in the Palaeolithic” is a research project focused on the technologies for plant food processing as documented by use-wear traces and plant residue on grinding tools found in European sites. Many researchers have been involved in the project, which encompasses the fields of archaeology, botany and food processing technologies, within the context of the history of European Prehistoric societies.The first study was carried out on use-wear traces and plant remains recovered from grinding tools from the sites of Bilancino (Italy), Kostienki 16 (Russia) and Pavlov VI (Czech Republic), dating to the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian and Gorotsovian) around 28,000–30,000 cal BP. The results demonstrated that vegetable food processing and the production of flour was a common practice across Europe from at least 30,000 years ago and that flour, a high-energy food, was a component of the food economy of mobile hunter gatherers. Flour production and consumption imply multi-step processing from harvesting to cooking to obtain a suitable and digestible food, and that this was part of an Upper Paleolithic behavioural package. This paper presents new data from two Gravettian pestles, found at Grotta Paglicci – level 23a (Southern Italy) and at Dolni Vestonice I (Czech Republic), which furnish further information about plant exploitation and the technologies related to plant food processing.

Birds in the Pavlovian culture: Dolni Vestonice II, Pavlov I and Pavlov II

New research affords new data on bird usage in the Pavlovian culture. This is the first article to report on bird remains excavated at Dolní Věstonice II and Pavlov II, and to discuss a small group of bones from Pavlov I. Although the two sites share a number of striking similarities, including the high frequency of Raven (Corvus corax), there are also some differences, e.g., in the ratio of the bird taxa. The former may be common for the whole Pavlovian culture; the latter may depend from specific usages of the sites by the Gravettian people.

Major dust events in Europe during marine isotope stage 5 (130–74 ka): a climatic interpretation of the "markers"

Abstract. At present, major dust storms are occurring at mid-latitudes in the Middle East and Asia, as well as at low latitudes in Northern Africa and in Australia. Western Europe, though, does not experience such dramatic climate events, except for some African dust reaching it from the Sahara. This modern situation is of particular interest, in the context of future climate projections, since the present interglacial is usually interpreted, in this context, as an analog of the warm Eemian interval. European terrestrial records show, however, major dust events during the penultimate interglacial and early glacial. These events are easily observed in loess records by their whitish-color deposits, which lie above and below dark chernozem paleosols in Central European records of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 age. We describe here the base of the Dolni Vestonice (DV) loess sequence, Czech Republic, as the reference of such records. The dust is deposited during intervals that are characterized by poor vegetation – manifested by high δ13C values and low magnetic susceptibility – while the fine sand and clay in the deposits shows grain sizes that are clearly different from the overlying pleniglacial loess deposits. Some of these dust events have been previously described as "Markers" or Marker Silts (MS) by one of us (G. Kukla), and are dated at about 111–109 ka and 93–92 ka, with a third and last one slightly visible at about 75–73 ka. Other events correspond to the loess material of Kukla's cycles, and are described as eolian silts (ES); they are observed in the same DV sequence and are dated at about 106–105 ka, 88–86 ka, and 78.5–77 ka. These dates are determined by considering the OSL ages with their errors measured on the studied sequence, and the comparison with Greenland ice-core and European speleothem chronologies. The fine eolian deposits mentioned above, MS as well as ES, correspond to short events that lasted about 2 ka; they are synchronous with re-advances of the polar front over the North Atlantic, as observed in marine sediment cores. These deposits also correlate with important changes observed in European vegetation. Some ES and MS events appear to be coeval with significant dust peaks recorded in the Greenland ice cores, while others are not. This decoupling between the European eolian and Greenland dust depositions is of considerable interest, as it differs from the fully glacial situation, in which the Eurasian loess sedimentation mimics the Greenland dust record. Previous field observations supported an interpretation of MS events as caused by continental dust storms. We show here, by a comparison with speleothems of the same age found in the northern Alps, that different atmospheric-circulation modes seem to be responsible for the two categories of dust events, MS vs. ES.

Composition of a floor from an Upper Paleolithic skeletal grave – A case from Dolni Vestonice (Moravia, Czechia, Central Europe)

Dolní Vĕstonice is a complex of sites, with a broad range of information about Early Modern Humans and the Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian), with regard to technology, art, faunal, site and human remains. Dolní Vĕstonice is located near the town of Brno in the region of Moravia, Czech Republic. The subject of our interest covers a floor of a grave niche, from the site Dolní Vĕstonice I. Raman micro-spectroscopic research pointed at presence of hematite in the several selected randomly from the burial bed samples. Raman spectroscopy seems to be a useful tool for processing analyses of microdimensional archeological objects.

Les céramiques gravettiennes de Moravie : derniers apports des recherches actuelles

The ceramics found at the sites of Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov in Moravia, Czech Republic, are the oldest known worldwide up to date (between 27,000 and 25,000 BP). It is remarkable that these ceramics are all human or animal figurines. The present work is a general study of a series of 316 figurative objects. A formal analysis of these objects allowed underlining the recognised themes of representation with a domination of body extremities (feet, legs, and muzzles), female representations, and feline and mammoth for the animals. Through these representations, a systematic use of synecdoche (a part is put for a whole) becomes visible with mostly legs/feet and isolated heads. A stylistic study of the pieces, combined to their technological study and to the analysis of the fingerprints found on some of the objects gives insights into the human context for their making and use with a rare clarity for such ancient periods. This production is much standardised and appears associated to the children, sub-adults and women of the Pavlovian groups.

Early modern human evolution in Central Europe: the people of Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov

Early modern human evolution in Central Europe: the people of Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov

Climate variations since the last interglacial recorded in Czech loess

Magnetic susceptibility, organic matter content, and grain size were measured on a loess/palaeosol sequence deposited since the last interglacial at the Dolni Vestonice section in the Czech Republic. High values in magnetic susceptibility and organic matter content in palaeosols PK0, PK2, and PK3 indicate that they were strongly influenced by long‐term pedogenesis and high vegetation density linked to interglacials or interstadials. Grain‐size variations record a series of cold wind‐strengthened events during the last glacial, which we interpret as a record of the distinctive ‘Younger Dryas’ episode and millennial‐scale climate oscillations that correlate with the GRIP ice core δ18O record and North Atlantic Heinrich events. These climate events, as indicated by grain‐size peaks, combined with previous climate records at French Massif Central and Lago Grande di Monticchio in Italy, suggest that the climate over these areas might have undergone synchronous oscillations with the shifts in sea‐surface temperatures of the North Atlantic and air temperature changes above Greenland.

Learning from Things: Method and Theory of Material Culture Studies ed. by W. David Kingery

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 317 Most noteworthy in the New World series is Anna Roosevelt’s “Early Pottery in the Amazon.” The pottery represents the earliest so far discovered in the Americas, dating to about 7,500 b.c.—“more than 1,500years earlier than elsewhere in the hemisphere” (p. 115). Roosevelt notes that the early radiocarbon dates for these Amazo­ nian sites were not taken seriously by earlier investigators and, while available in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution (p. 116), re­ mained hidden and unpublished until now. She does not, however, claim Amazonia as the “hearth of pottery in the New World” (p. 129), recognizing from her experience with these hidden data that archaeologists in the past have too often let their theoretical models determine and override empirical research strategies and results. The final three chapters are not as conclusive as one would expect. I take particular exception to Hayden’s preoccupation with status and prestige as forces for technological innovation. While elites are often the first to acquire exotic, expensive, and new kinds of objects in order to display their wealth and status, they often do not invent these new objects but simply adopt them. The invention of those objects and technologies originates, instead, with individuals experi­ menting on the basis of knowledge and experience of other and earlier craft technologies, and very often within a ritualistic con­ text—which apparently was the case for ceramics at Dolni Vestonice in the Upper Palaeolithic. Joan M. Vastokas Dr. Vastokas is professor of anthropology at Trent University, Ontario, Canada. Her research and writing focus on material culture, art, architecture, and technology in various societies. Learning from Things: Method and Theory of Material Culture Studies. Edited by W. David Kingery. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Insti­ tution Press, 1996. Pp. x+262; illustrations, maps, figures, notes. $39.00 (cloth). This collection of fifteen essays is based on a Smithsonian confer­ ence on material culture. W. David Kingery’s editor’s preface cites the conference theme: “the conviction that the things humankind makes and uses at any particular time and place are probably the truest representation we have ofvalues and meaning within a society. The study of things, material culture, is thus capable of piercing in­ terdisciplinary boundaries and bringing forward meaningful discus­ sions and interactions among scholars in many disparate fields” (p. ix). This anthology is to be “an introduction to the methods and theories common to material cultural studies in a variety of specialist fields’ ’ (p. ix). Kingery claims that Historyfrom Things: Essays on Mate­ rial Culture, which he coedited with Steven Lubar (Washington, D.C.: 318 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Smithsonian Institution, Press, 1993), is a predecessor volume, but he gives neither date nor title for the conference. Nor do we learn how this volume reflects the total conference agenda. Kingery asserts that “No one denies the importance of things, but learning from them requires rather more attention than reading texts. The grammar of things is related to, but more complex and difficult to decipher than, the grammar of words” (p. 1). These es­ says help practitioners of “a relatively new and distinct discipline,” the study of material culture, learn to work together and appreciate the contributions ofmany disciplines to material culture (p. 1). After one introductory chapter, the book is divided into four parts: “Para­ digms for Material Culture Studies,” “Material Culture in the His­ tory of Technology,” “Formation Processes,” and “Materials Sci­ ence in Material Culture Studies.” The strengths of this volume are the varied backgrounds of the contributors, the strong international perspective these experts bring to their work, and the section on materials science. The ten U.S. and three European authors include anthropologists (some­ times also materials science experts), archaeologists, historians, and an ethnologist. Jules D. Prown distinguished between “hard” and “soft” material culturists, between those who focus on “the reality of the object it­ self” and “the artifact as part of a language through which culture speaks its mind” (pp. 21-22). The essays can be similarly divided. Representing the “soft” approach, JosephJ. Corn and Ruth Oldenziel provide useful historiographical essays focused on articles in Technology and Culture and on the influence...

The Origins of Ceramic Technology at Dolni Věstonice, Czechoslovakia

A typology was established for more than 5000 ceramic artifacts at Dolni Vestonice, Czechoslovakia. Conjectured methods of manufacture were confirmed by radiography. The compositions and mineralogy of the artifacts were identical to those of the local soil, loess. A firing temperature range of 500 degrees to 800 degrees C was measured and compared with those of hearths and kilns. The mechanism of sintering was impurity-initiated, liquid-phase sintering. Many fracture sections show evidence of thermal shock, although thermal expansion of the loess is low. The making, firing, and sometimes exploding of the figurines may have been the prime function of the ceramics at this site rather than being manufactured as permanent, portable objects.