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Dolni Vestonice I - the kiln and encampment
This is an excellent view by the highly talented artist Giovanni Caselli of what life must have been like at Dolni Vestonice during the winter. It was very close to the ice sheet which extended from the poles to just a few kilometres from Dolni Vestonice, creating a cold tundra-like vegetation, but one which was ideal for grazing animals such as mammoths and reindeer, who migrated to the area in summer, and then headed south for the winter. By preserving the food hunted in summer and autumn, the inhabitants could live a good life in the one area, aided by its local geography making it the focus point for travel in the area by grazing animals.
Painting: Giovanni Caselli
Highly recommended for all bookshelves.
Dolni Vestonice artist's impression. This Paleolithic site was inhabited from ca. 27 000 to 23 000 B.C. To give some sense of scale, the rounded structure in the lower center, which perhaps was a wind screen, measured 27 by 45 feet. The settlement had perhaps 100 people who inhabited the site the year round. In this period, Europe was in the midst of the Ice Age so the average daily temperature was probably around freezing. The site was on the edge of a swamp, and was at a point where mammoths and other herd animals would be funnelled in to make hunting them more easy.
Fig.1 - Location of the Mammoth Bone Deposits sites in Moravia.
1-2: Dolní Věstonice I-II
3: Pavlov I
4: Milovice I
5: Boršice
6: Jarošov
7: Spytihněv
8: Předmostí I
Moravia is a historical region in central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, one of the former Czech lands. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region. It occupies most of the eastern third of the Czech Republic. (Text: Wikipedia)
Photo: Svoboda (2001)
Dolní Věstonice
Example of a Mammoth bone deposit.
Several Mammoth bone deposits
were discovered by K. Absolon, especially in
upper part of this large and complex settlement.
One of them, because of its circular shape, was
later interpreted by B. Klíma as the basement of a
dwelling structure. However the largest Mammoth bone deposit
was excavated by B. Klíma next to the upper
part of the settlement in a shallow, partly
watered depression, located longitudinally
along the slope, about 45 m long and 12 m wide.
Besides mammoths, this bone deposit also contained a
few remains of horse, wolf, reindeer and
hare.
Photo and text: Svoboda (2001)
Dolní Věstonice II
This is a large, spatially and chronologically structured settlement, following longitudinally the eastern margin of a side valley, about 500 m long. Part of a Mammoth bone deposit, measuring 10 x 10 m and located in fluviatile sands (with water snails), was excavated by J. Svoboda in the upper part of the gorge. Additional mammoth bones were scattered in lower parts of the gorge as well.
Pavlov I
This large and complex settlement, excavated by B.Klíma, provided only smaller and spatially restricted mammoth bone accumulations inside the settled area, but a Mammoth bone deposit was absent.
Pavlov.
This is a Gravettian site. In the hollowed pit, four hearths. On the rims, stones. Animal bones concentrated mainly in the pit and its vicinity.
Photo: Neustupný (1960)
Milovice I
This site is located in the terminal part of a large side valley, about 2000 m long. Two Mammoth bone deposits (larger than the adjacent settled areas above them) were located on a slope, about 1500 m from the valley mouth. Besides mammoths, there is an admixture of horse, reindeer and wolf.
Inside the settled area above, a circular mammoth bone accumulation was found by M. Oliva, and interpreted as a dwelling (Oliva 1988).
Text above: Svoboda (2001)
Detailed plan of Upper Paleolithic settlements in the Dolní Věstonice - Pavlov microregion.
Excavated Mammoth Bone Deposits, at Dolní Věstonice I and II, are indicated by oblong areas.
Photo: Svoboda (2001)
Profile of the cultural layer of loess at the Pavlov site.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
From the excellent book 'Cro-Magnon Man' by T. Prideaux:
One of the best-known sites is Dolni Vestonice, in south central Czechoslovakia, and from the buried remains of this ancient community an intriguing picture of man's domestic life in Europe 27,000 years ago can be reconstructed:
On a grass-covered slope dotted with a few isolated trees, a settlement of five huts was partially surrounded by a simple wall of mammoth tusks and bones stuck into the ground and piled about with brush and turf. One hut was set 90 yards apart from the others. The four close together were supported by wooden posts leaning slightly towards the middle, like tent poles, and planted in the earth with rocks piled around their bases for support. The walls were animal skins, presumably dressed and sewn together, then drawn over the posts and anchored to the ground with stones and heavy bones.
A small stream meandered down the slope close by the houses, and the ground all around had been hard-packed by the feet of the generations of people who lived here. In an open place among the huts there was a large fire; very likely a fire-tender kept it going by throwing on chunks of bone. Apparently it burned all the time to keep prowling animals away.
Inside the largest hut, about 50 feet long by 20 feet wide, were five shallow hearths dug in the floor. One was equipped with two long mammoth bones stuck in the ground to support a roasting spit. In these relatively comfortable surroundings it is easy to imagine a man sitting on a boulder making tools-working with the purposeful, deceptively slow movements -of a master craftsman, using a bone hammer to strike delicate blades from a cylindrical chunk of flint, the core. Meanwhile, from a far end of the hut might have come a clear, high-pitched sound like a bird's call. Its source would have been a woman blowing into the end of a piece of hollow bone that had two or three holes pierced in its length-what humans some 25,000 years later would call a penny whistle has been found at Dolni Vestonice.
But the most startling discovery at this Czech site is the remains of the small hut up the slope that was set apart from the others. The hut had been cut into the hill, which formed its back wall; its sides consisted partly of a low wall of stones and clay, and the entrance faced downhill.
Inside a visitor would have seen a hearth quite different from those apparent in the other huts; this one had an earthen dome on top of fiercely glowing coals. It was an oven for baking clay, a kiln-one of the very first ever built. Even at this early date the raw material that was baked in the kiln was a specially prepared substance. No simple mud from a stream bank, it was earth mixed with powdered bone to make the heat spread evenly as the oven baked, or fired, the clay into a new, rock-hard material. This is the first example in technological history of what was to become a ubiquitous process-the combination and treatment of two or more dissimilar substances to make a useful product unlike either starting substance-eventually leading to glass, bronze, steel, nylon and most of the other materials of everyday life. It would be another 15,000 years or so before other men, living in what is now Japan, learned to turn clay into pots; yet, as the evidence from Dolni Vestonice attests, ceramics had already been invented.
When the kiln hut was first investigated in 1951, its sooty floor was littered with fragments of ceramic figurines. There were animal heads-bears, foxes, lions. In one particularly beautiful lion head there is a hole simulating a wound, perhaps intended to help some hunter inflict a similar wound on a real lion. The floor was also cluttered with hundreds of clay pellets bearing the fingerprints of the prehistoric artisan; he probably pinched them off his lump of unbaked clay when he first began to knead and shape it to his desire. And there were limbs broken from little animal and human figures. They may have cracked off in the baking, or when the ancient ceramist tossed aside a work that failed to please him.
But more intriguing than any waste fragments or even clay animal figures on the hut floor are the human statuettes found there-particularly the female figures. Unlike the animals, they are not naturalistic but almost surreal. They have bulging breasts and buttocks, ~distorted arms and legs that taper to points. Experts today still wonder about these so-called Venuses (pages 92, 98-100). Were they household goddesses whose pointed legs were stuck in the ground to hold them upright as they watched over hearth and home? Were they fertility symbols whose ample figures were supposed to enhance fecundity? Certainly they are beautiful objects in spite of their grotesque proportions. They have a grace and dignity, a stylized plasticity, that make them comparable to some modern sculpture.
Text below from:
The Prehistory of Europe by Patricia Phillips 1980
One of the most famous Moravian sites is Dolni Vestonice, situated on the hill of Pollau, commanding good views, and with nearby springs. It was excavated in the 1920s, when the famous 'Venus' figurine was found, and again in 1947-52 (Klima, B. 1963. Dolni Vestonice. Erforschung eine Lagenplatzes der Mammutjager an der Jahren 1947-52 (Monum. Archaeol., XI.)) There was a total of six levels of occupation.
A fairly cold climate is suggested by the molluscs, the charcoal and the pollen from the site. Spruce and pine were used to make fires, suggesting a forest tundra environment. Two possible structures (see Fig. 22) are described by Klima, the first roughly oval in shape, 15 m long x 9 m wide. This very large structure contained five hearths, most of them with large blocks of limestone nearby.
The hearths seemed to have been the focus for most activity, judging by the number of finds made near them. The excavators wonder if small ash-filled pits near the hearths represent storage places. More than 35 000 pieces of flint were found in the habitation area, and it appeared that flint working was carried out in the centre and north of the structure.
Chipped-stone tools were made on local chalk flint and hornstone and on Carpathian radiolarite. Mammothbone artifacts, shells and ochre were also found in the structure, particularly near the southern two hearths. The walls of the structure are presumed to have been of limestone blocks, perhaps surmounted in some way by shoulder-blades and pelves of mammoths; the excavators feel this may have been a summer structure, open to the sky.
Klima's plan of the hut excavation and surrounding trenches reveals that a relatively clear space existed to the south-east of the hut, followed by enormous piles of mammoth bones. These were excavated in 1952 and revealed the remains of approximately one hundred, mostly young, individuals, with rarer bones of horse, reindeer, hare, wolf and fox. A series of hearths lay below the bone accumulations. No projectile points were found, and the excavators suggest that the mammoths could have been hunted by using ivory projectile points or wooden lances (Klima, B. 1963. Dolni Vestonice. Erforschung eine Lagenplatzes der Mammutjager an der Jahren 1947-52 (Monum. Archaeol., XI.)).
The second hut was about 6 m in diameter, with a central hearth and five of the original post-holes remaining. The most important artifacts were some 2000 lumps of burnt clay found near the central hearth, some of them bearing fingerprints, others modelled in the shape of animal heads (bear, wolf and fox). The excavators wondered if this 'special activity' hut belonged to a shaman. A child buried at Dolni Vestonice III had a necklace of twenty-seven pierced fox teeth; the skull area was covered with red ochre, and the whole burial lay beneath mammoth shoulder blades. The elaborate treatment suggests that the child had some importance in the community.
Klima believes that Dolni Vestonice was occupied specifically for mammoth hunting, and that with as many as twenty to twenty-five people per hut, and a postulated five or six huts being occupied at a time on the site, the occupants may have been 100-120 strong. The length of stay each season, and the possible length of use of the site, have not been estimated.
Banesz has recently reviewed the evidence for habitation structures in central Europe, and remarked on the fact that one third of those known lie in Czechoslovakia. Extensive sites are known from Pavlov. Here eleven 'habitation units' are known, and the site is still being excavated. The structures are circular, oval and 'pinched in at the centre', all contain hearths, and there is evidence for the re-use of post-holes. This led the excavators to suggest long occupation at the site (Klima B. 1976. Le Pavlovien IXe Congr. UISPP, Nice, Coll. XV, pp. 128-41. Paris CNRS.).
Klima regards the Pavlovian as a specialized mammothhunting industrial complex, on the cold loess country of central and eastern Europe. Other authors have suggested that the mammoth bones could have been scavenged rather than hunted. The more remarkable aspects of the assemblage at Pavlovian sites are the mammoth-bone and ivory industries which include possible earth-working tools - shovels, hoes, pickaxes and spearpoints.
Klima has suggested that the mammothhunters of Pavlov had complex and specialized hunting methods, including verbal signalling on bone pipes (found in the assemblage), and collective large-group organization. Emphasis on mammoth is overwhelming, but other animal remains are found on the sites. For instance, at Predmost, apart from a large quantity of mammoth, remains of reindeer, horse, wolf, fox, glutton and hare were identified.
A research dig at Dolni Vestonice, which exposed a fireplace used to create ceramic objects, the first ever made.
Note the perfectly smooth and vertical walls, possible only because of the loess which covered the deposits. Loess is wind blown rock flour from glacial action.
This is S'Armuna's hut. Note the curved retaining wall of limestone blocks. There were a number of post holes suggesting a sloping roof. In the centre there was a well constructed hearth which was flanked by mammoth tusks. In and around the hearth were more than 2300 fragments of fired clay, the earliest 'pottery' in the world.
Text: Don Hitchcock
Photo: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Plan of round hut number II discovered by B. Klima in 1951 at Dolni Vestonice. 1 Depression in the ground: 2 Post holes; 3 Remains of the circular wall around the dwelling and the fireplace; 4 fireplace; 5 spring
This is the plan of S'Armuna's hut which stood at Dolni Vestonice 25 000 years ago. Its edge was strengthened with a wall of earth and stones, in which the posts supporting the roof were placed. The pole holes are marked on the plan by black holes. In the centre of the floor was found the remains of a kiln. Scattered around the kiln and the hut were fired lumps of clay, some in the shape of animals.
The hut was on slightly sloping ground and also near a spring, now underground at the time of discovery. A single, oval-shaped fireplace was found in the middle of the almost circular dwelling which was 6 metres in diameter. The fireplace had a blackened clay step around two thirds of it. Several rough pieces of clay were found in the ashes, and also parts of clay animals and human figurines. The living room and fireplace had been levelled by extending one side into the slope for about 0.8 metres, and building up the other with stones.
At the edge and within the surface area two types of post holes have been discovered. Four larger holes were vertical, lined with stones and placed in the remains of the stone wall. They were 200 mm deep, 100 to 150 mm wide, and carried the main posts of construction. (8 inches deep by 4 to 6 inches wide). No holes were found on the other side. The roof of the dwelling must have had a distinct slope. One side of the roof rested on the poles, the other on the ground. The post holes of the second type were at an angle, about 100 mm deep and 50 to 70 mm wide. These three holes were located in the inner part of the dwelling and obviously supported extra props for the roof.
It was not only a living room but also a work room. The hut stood apart from the others and could have housed a high ranking person such as a shaman or medicine man.
-J Jelinek, 'The Evolution of Man'
S'Armuna's hut
Cross section of the hut above showing the sloping roof. I had always thought that there was the outline of a skeleton lying on its back with legs up on the slope and head in the fireplace, but this is an illusion. There are mammoth bones at the back of the hut, and a stone in the fireplace where the head would be. Note also that the plan of the hut is round, although in this cross section it might appear to be a long narrow structure.
S. Mason has also found tap root material from the compositae family, which includes daisies and dandelions, at Dolni Vestonice. These roots are often quite edible. See http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/profiles/smason/smdolnv.htm
Photo: K. Sklenar, 'Hunters of the Stone Age'
(Annotated map of one of the sites at Dolní Věstonice, with the red arrow showing the place where the Dolní Věstonice Venus was found by Dr Karel Absolon in 1925.
This is an historic document, and displays the way that archeology was becoming a far more scientific and well recorded science by this time. Previously, field notes and careful measurements of sites were very rarely done in such detail, and this carefully drawn grid is a tribute to the professional scientific work done by Dr Absolon - Don.)
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Individual dwellings with a centrally located hearth were the norm for this area. Each hut could hold 8 to 15 people, and if there were several of them at once, it is entirely possible that there could have been up to one hundred people living in the Dolni Vestonice area at once.
Text: Translated and adapted from the display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
These were found on the far side of the marsh.
Photo: G. Clark, 'The Stone Age Hunters'
Washington University in St Louis
Protective footwear started nearly 30,000 years ago, research finds
By Neil Schoenherr
Text and images below from:http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/5584.html
Image by Erik Trinkaus / Czech Academy of Sciences
A 26,000 year-old early modern human, DolniVestonice 16 from the Czech Republic, showing the reduced strength of the bones of the lesser toes. It is one of three partial foot skeletons from Dolni Vestonice that shows the reduced lesser toe strength, all dating to about 26,000 years ago.
Aug. 17, 2005 - Those high-tech, air-filled, light-as-a-feather sneakers on your feet are a far cry from the leather slabs our ancestors wore for protection and support.
Those high-tech, air-filled, light-as-a-feather sneakers on your feet are a far cry from the leather slabs our ancestors wore for protection and support.
But believe it or not, our modern day Nikes and Reeboks are direct descendents of the first supportive footwear that new research suggests came into use in western Eurasia between 26,000 and 30,000 years ago.
Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Physical Anthropology, derived those dates by analyzing anatomical evidence of early modern humans, which suggests a reduction in the strength of the smaller toes in Upper Paleolithic humans while there was little change in leg strength.
His research was published in the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science .
Trinkaus argues that early humans living in far northern climates began to put insulation on their feet around 500,000 years ago. While archaeological evidence suggests that protective footwear was in use by at least the middle Upper Paleolithic in portions of Europe, the frequency of use and the actual mechanical protection provided by that footwear was unclear.
Use of protective footwear has been difficult to document because in most cases the footwear does not survive the test of time.
Lacking such physical evidence, Trinkaus analyzed the foot bones of western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic and middle Upper Paleolithic humans. In doing so, he found the anatomy of their feet began to change starting around 26,000 years ago.
"I discovered that the bones of the little toes of humans from that time frame were much less strongly built than those of their ancestors while their leg bones remained large and strong," Trinkaus said. "The most logical cause would be the introduction of supportive footwear."
During barefoot walking, the smaller toes flex for traction, keeping the toe bones strong. Supportive footwear lessens the roll of the little toes, thus weakening them.
Trinkaus' research paper is available from:
Journal of Archaeological Science
Volume 32, Issue 10, October 2005, Pages 1515-15
This wolf skull was lying among many other animal bones, obviously the remains of some of the food of the Paleolithic hunters. A flint flake was stuck in the nose of the animal. The wound did not seem to have healed, and the X-ray showed that the flake used was broad, flat and atypically shaped. Tools could sometimes be used for purposes for which they are not obviously suitable.
Dolni Vestonice is the most important Palaeolithic site in the Czech Republic. It was first excavated in 1949. While uncovering a large hut, they dug a little below the original floor level. Here they found a body which had been laid in a shallow dish shaped pit, and covered with two mammoth shoulder bones, one of which had been engraved on its lower side. The body rested on its right side with its knees drawn up to the chin. The body had been sprinkled with red ochre before being covered. It belonged to a woman who had been about 40 years old when she died, and had been small and slim, standing about 160 cm, or 4 feet 10 inches at most. Lying in the grave were several flint flakes. Beside the body's left hand were the bones of an arctic fox, while the right hand grasped ten canine teeth from an arctic fox. The complete grave can still be seen in the Moravian Museum at Brno.
One of the burials revealed a human female skeleton, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. The bones and the earth surrounding it contained traces of red ochre, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence indicates that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.
Text above: Wikipedia
Excavation of the woman buried beneath a mammoth shoulder blade, above which there was part of a mammoth pelvic bone. The skull is visible on the side below the shoulder blade, near the numbered disk '11'. Radiocarbon dates on the human remains give an approximate date of 27 000 years BP.
The place and the moment of discovery of the grave at Pavlov.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Akademik J. Poulik, doc. B. Klima a akademik J. Bohm u hrobu zeny v Dolnich Věstonicich.
Academicians J. Poulik, doc. B. Klima and J. Bohm at the grave of a woman in Dolní Vestonice.
These men were very important in the development of Czech Archaeology, and I have included some information about them below.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Josef Poulík
Josef Poulík was a leading light of Czech archaeology. His career started as a laboratory technician at the Moravian State Museum participating in many research projects which later he would write about in the local press. As the Head of the State Archaeological Institute in Brno from 1962, he conducted an extensive archaeological dig in Moravia and led the biggest Czechoslovak research project in Mikulčice. The primary focus of his scientific interest lay in the Slavic period. Since 1947 he also led the Prague Archaeological Institute, which later joined with the institute in Brno in ARU ČSAV. In addition, he also worked as a professor at the university in Brno as an academic and Vice Chairman of ČSAV, and was also a laureate for the State Award.
Source: http://www.praha.eu/jnp/en/extra/archaelogy_/archaeologists/index.html
Photo by Alexander Marshack, reproduced in the National Geographic Magazine, October 1988
Text below from:
http://www.obitcentral.com/obitsearch/obits/misc/anthro16.htm
Bohuslav Klima, 74, the leading figure in Czech archaeology and one of the pre-eminent archaeologists of his generation died in Brno, Czech Republic, on February 6, 2000. A prolific scholar and an indefatigable field investigator, Klima was part of a distinguished intellectual tradition of outstanding Moravian researchers. His scholarly interests ranged widely and resulted in more than 380 publications in Czech, English, French, German and Russian on a wide variety of topics from the Lower Paleolithic to the Neolithic.
He was best known to American and European specialists for his seminal work on the Pavlov culture, a Central European variant of the Gravettian technocomplex, which he, together with H. Delporte defined in 1959. His extensive field work at such world reknowned sites such as Dolni Vestonice I and II and Pavlov I and II, as well as Petrkovice and Predmosti, not only revealed the existence of highly sophisticated and novel technologies in the Upper Paleolithic, but also focused well-deserved attention on these premier sites of universal importance in the human cultural patrimony of our planet.
Although contributing heavily to the cultural history of Central Europe, Klima’s research attention was always also focused on understanding the lifeways of the producers and users of the complex material culture inventories excavated. This involved early application of multidisciplinary approaches to studying the past, including combining geological, paleontologic, palynological and pedological data to reconstruct Pleisto cene landscapes. He devoted equal attention to the social, symbolic and ritual frameworks that lay behind Upper Paleolithic adaptations and published on prehistoric art, ritual and belief systems.
Klima lived a rich life and one filled with recognition and accolades from the world community of archaeologists. He began his scholarly career at the Moravian Museum and subsequently was in charge of Paleolithic research in the Prehistoric Department at the Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Brno. At the time of his death he was clearly one of Europe’s leading Paleolithic specialists and the premier expert on Central and Eastern Europe. This eminence, however, was borne with gentlemanly grace and quiet confidence. In addition to being a world-class scholar, Klima was an unparalleled colleague and mentor. His gracious office and home at Dolni Vestonice were always open to Czech and foreign researchers who benefited from his erudition, wisdom and oneological prize-winning expertise. We can attest to his scholarly and intellectual magnanimity and openness to new ideas and interpretations, and our palates and those of countless other archaeologists can also vouch for the superiority of his "Mammoth Blood."
His well-deserved expertise was not exclusionary, but always open to new ideas and interpretations. Klima likely knew more than anyone about the Upper Paleolithic of Central Europe, but was always open to learning more.
Although Klima’s death marks the passing of an intellectual giant—indeed a classic European scholar—the trajectory of scholarship which he forged will flourish at Dukla in the work of the younger generation of Moravian experts trained or influenced by him. (Olga Soffer and James M Adovasio)
Text below from: http://www.praha.eu/jnp/en/extra/archaelogy_/archaeologists/index.html
Jaroslav Böhm (1901–1962)
Jaroslav Böhm was a Czech archaeologist specialising in prehistoric archaeology. After a short period working in the Department of Prehistory in the National Museum he took a post at the Prague Archaeological Institute, where in 1939, he became the director. For his doctoral thesis in Charles University he wrote "The Foundations of the Hallstatt’s Period in the Czech Lands".
He was in charge of excavations: in Třebechovice, in Staré Hradisko near Prostějov, in the cave Domica and in the Slovanian fortification Libušín. He believed in large scale excavations that developed contemporary research methods. In 1952 he was one of the founders of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Science. Ten years later in Rome he was appointed the President of International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Science.
Left: Woman's skull stained with red ochre from a Pavlovian burial near Dolni Vestonice.
Right: Lower jaw from a Pavlovian burial near Dolni Vestonice. The bone on the left of the jaw has been deformed due to arthritis.
Jaw of a woman, stained with red ochre, from a Pavlovian burial
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Facsimile, display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Archaeologists investigating an area covered with red ochre, Petřkovice near Ostrava in Moravia, the same site where the Ostrava Venus was discovered, see the section on the Moravain Venuses.
At Petřkovicích an area was found which was completely covered with powdered red dye in the middle part of the site. It is a type of iron ore. Pollen of aquatic plants, as found in the dye samples, show that the ochre was mixed with water, but almost certainly other binders would have been used.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Large fireplace, the centre of one of the homes in Dolní Věstonice.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated from the display.
Painstaking research, Pavlova, in 1957.
Note the way that the dig has been divided up into squares, a method which ensures that accurate maps can be drawn of the dig and the finds made, and the walls between may be used for later research when, for example, better dating techniques are developed.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
A dig in Dolní Věstonice in 1951
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
This sieve allowed the finest artefacts to be found in the sediments, all of which were put through to make sure all information possible was garnered.
Note the grape vines nearby - the site was in a vineyard.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Cutaway drawing of a hut at Dolní Věstonice.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Artist: Unknown
Professor Karel Absolon (1877-1960)
From 1924 to 1938 he conducted research at Dolní Věstonice. In 1925 he discovered the Dolní Věstonice Venus.
Source: Photo on display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Biographical details: http://www.mzm.cz/mzm/osobnosti/karel_absolon.html
Tomb of Dr. Karel Absolon, city of Brno, 2008
This is a wonderful tomb for such a man, symbolising his great work on the animals of caves, as well as his work on the mammoth hunters of Dolní Věstonice, by the use of the mammoth tusks in front of the tomb.
Source: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Absolon
Datum Date: 2008
Source: Own work
Author: NPE
Permission: Public domain - I, the author of this work, by releasing it as public domain, and the world.
Fireplace in Dolní Věstonice, using rocks for storage of heat.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
It is not always realised that when a site is uncovered, the artefacts found may appear to be arranged in a very confused manner.
It is the job of the researcher to create order out of chaos, and make a good analysis of what the site originally looked like, its age and its purpose.
zaprstni kost mamuta - mammoth metatarsus bone
sobi paroh - reindeer antlers
stehenni kost mamuta - mammoth femur
mamuti lopatka - mammoths shoulder blade
Source: Facsimiles, display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
The preservation of a mammoth skull, which are often quite fragile when found. The researcher is using a plaster cast to stabilise the skull before removal.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Group of mammoth vertebrae, Dolní Věstonice.
It is presumed that the hunters used the rugged terrain at the foot of the Pavlov Hills, which are shaped like a naturally occurring trap. The mammoth was separated from the herd and driven against a steep and slippery slope, where the hunters charged the exhausted animal and speared it.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Excavated area in 1925 with many well preserved mammoth bones.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
(Loess had covered the finds with several metres of fine grained sediments. Loess is rock flour created by the vast ice sheets and glaciers of the last ice age, ground from the basal rock, and picked up by strong winds during dry periods. There would have been very little visibility at such times.
The edge of the vast northern ice cap was close to Dolní Věstonice, and the periglacial conditions were ideal for the creation of tundra and steppe vegetation on which huge numbers of grazing animals such as horses and mammoths could thrive.
Dolní Věstonice was ideally placed for the passage and hunting of such game - Don)
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
When foundations are dug for houses at Dolní Věstonice, numerous remains of animals are uncovered. This is the skull of a wolf.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Accurate surveys allow the research to have the most value. This dig was near a village, as may be seen from the houses in the background. Many important sites have been found when a householder digs a cellar, and comes upon ancient artefacts or bones.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
At some sites, the bones exposed are so fragile that they must first be hardened before they are able to be moved to the laboratory in order to identify, catalogue and conserve them in a more permanent manner. Here a hardening preservative is being sprayed on the mammoth bones before removal. For very precious material such as ancient human remains, the whole skeleton with associated soil is first carefully prepared, then removed as a large rectangular block, and crated for transport to the laboratory. This is a highly specialised and difficult procedure.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Map of Pavlov. This is possibly taken from the book "Dolní Věstonice" by A. Knor, V. Lozek, J. Pelisek and K. Zebera which was in a nearby display case.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
The remains of a hunting settlement from the period 28 000 to 24 000 years BP, were found under a thick layer of loess. The loess, rock ground to fine powder by glaciers and subsequently picked up by the strong winds of the time, was mostly deposited during a subsequent period, the Last Glacial Maximum, (LGM) around 20 000 years BP, when the Scandinavian ice sheet reached as far south as today's Poland, and had an adverse impact on the climate in this region, which became cooler and drier.
(This particular site on a cliff line allowed the researchers to quickly, and relatively safely and cheaply, excavate a very large depth of sediment. It is very rare to have this sort of ideal digging site. To dig down to this depth from a level planar surface, simply a very large hole in the ground, would be a huge and difficult and costly operation - Don)
Text translated and adapted from the display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Photo: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
This is a wonderful display showing the layers found for the photo above, and the way the cut into the cliff was stepped in order to maximise safety for the workers, for a total depth of twenty metres.
Photo: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
A map showing the distribution of sites in the Dolní Věstonice - Pavlov area. If you click on the map you will see a larger photo with the surrounding area included, which also has a large number of sites. The Dolní Věstonice - Pavlov cultural areas are shown in green.
This area is similar in many ways to the Kostenki - Borshevo region beside the Don River in Russia. It was not just one site, it was many, spread over a fairly wide area, and was an open air site. Most open air sites do not give the wealth of data that these sites, both here at Dolní Věstonice and at Kostenki, have yielded, and both are from similar times. Both have Venus figures, both depended heavily on mammoths for their culture, and both used mammoth bones in the creation of shelters.
Photo: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
After World War II there was continued archaeological research by the Academy of Sciences, first in Dolní Vestonice and later there were large-scale excavations in neighboring Pavlov.
In 1985-1989 loess was excavated for the construction of reservoirs to service a new housing development at Dolni Vestonice. This fortuitously led to some important and famous discoveries of human skeletons.
The main task of current research is now the complete processing of the material already collected from the perspective of various disciplines (archeology, anthropology, geology, paleontology, and others) and its publication. In order to complete this task, in 1995 the Archaeological Institute AS CR in Brno set up separate Paleolithic and paleoethnology research teams in Dolni Vestonice.
Photo and text: Translated and adapted from the display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
When hunting horses before 18 000 years ago, hunters used the steep north walls and the gradual slope on the other side of Stransky rocks, Stránská skála, near Brno, to drive the horses over the cliff. At that time Dolní Věstonice was not inhabited.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Artist: Unknown
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
Stránská skála is an isolated limestone hill, situated about 5 km north and east of the centre of Brno. It is 1.5 km long, almost 400 m wide, and lies 310 m above sea level. While the southeastern slope is quite moderate, and passes gradually into a plain, the northwestern boundary is steep, the limestone walls falling vertically into the valley.
Text accompanying the photo above is adapted from Musil (1968)
Photo: Description English: Stránská rock in Brno, Czech Republic.
Datum Date: 2005-10-09 (original upload date)
Source: Originally from cs.wikipedia
Author: Original uploader was Onovy at cs.wikipedia
Permission: Dual-licensed under the GFDL and cc-by-sa-2.5.
Source: Wikipedia, http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stránská_skála
Horse bones uncovered below Stránská skála.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
Detail of horse bones, Stránská skála.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
Researchers excavating storage pits filled with animal bones, particularly common deposits of Eastern Europe, Gontsy, Russia.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated and adapted from the display.
The first excavation in 1924.
Source: Display, Dolní Věstonice Museum
Text: Translated from the display.
This is a delightful first person account of someone who went to Dolni Vestonice.
From:
http://www.spiritproject.com/oracle/magic/travel/dolni.htm
It is not easy to find - too small for most maps, and only the larger neighbor village Horni Vestonice has a sign from the main road. There are no signs for tourists, no fast-foods offering "Venus burgers" - and this makes it so very special. In Dolni Vestonice, the traveler interested in archeomythology does not get it all ready to eat, you have to find it yourself and talk with the people who live there today. Dolni Vestonice is situated in the South of the Czech Republic close to the city of Mikulov. Dolni is a small village with approximately 500 inhabitants - the most important thing seems to be the main road with some restaurants and little stores and shops. It is Indian Summer, fishers are on their way to the near artificial lake and colorfully clothed bikers relax in the shade in front of a road inn. There are no signs that say "museum" or "archeological exhibition".
After driving through the village from all sides some time I finally found the museum of Dolni Vestonice, plain gray with a simple sign saying "Archeologicke Exposize". The cashier lady only speaks Czech, but she does not only offer entrance tickets, but also information leaflets in German and English and rough-made plastic casts of the Venus of Vestonice. I get myself a leaflet and enter the exhibition. There are lots of text in and around the showcases, but all in Czech language, and although some words look familiar, I soon give up. The leaflet explains that I find only remakes of the originals from Dolni Vestonice and the neighboring village Pavlov. The archeologist Karel Absolon made excavations from 1924 to 1938 and found, among many other interesting tools and items, the statuette of a woman made from burnt clay (today plastic...) - she became famous as the "Venus of Vestonice". Like her "sisters" from other archeological excavations worldwide, the "Willendorf Venus" from Austria, the "Venus of Laussel" and the "Venus of Lespugue" in France she is depicted as a voluptuous woman with heavy breasts and broad hips standing in an upright position. But unlike all the others who don't have face features, she has eyes - slit carvings that make her look like squinting in the sun.
They are all very old, those ladies - the village Pavlov gave its name to a complete time period, the Pavlovien as the older phase of the Gravettien, 30.000 - 25.000 years before our time. Along with the venus, zoomorphic statuettes have been found, made of clay, stone and bone, carved or modelled. And there is another Venus figurine who did not become as famous as her darker colored sister - she is very special, because her face is carved very carefully, and her body is nearly complete. Both Venuses are shown in the same showcase next to each other. The museum offers a lot of interesting and very special details of our ancestors - hints on how colors were made and used and the reconstruction of a burial site of three young people, a woman and two men - the woman was found with shamanic headbands made from teeth, claws and shells. Strange and rare circumstances gave us even the fingerprints of one of our forebears on a lump of clay.
So much for the historical details of the museum. I was interested to find out more about the experiences which the famous archeologist Marija Gimbutas called "archeomythology".I leave the exhibition, and in the souvenir shop on the other roadside I find a book in English on the archeological findings in the area, and I also get a plastic pendant of the black Venus. Then I take off to Pavlov. Nobody can tell me where the excavation site really was. After asking several people in the village I give up and go on according to one of the black-and-white photos I had seen in the exhibition - showing the successful professors on the excavation site of Pavlov right under the ruins of Pavlov castle.
The ruins still look the same today. I park my car and climb uphill past grapevine fields and orchards. Below I see the green shimmer of the large artificial lake, and I keep asking myself how many wonderful treasures it may hide from us forever. Rotting trees reach like hands out of the lake, on their silvery gray branches cormorants dry their feathers in the sunshine. I keep on climbing, still watching the angle from which the castle looks down on me. Now this looks like the right place. A farmer comes my way, pulling a little cart loaded with grapes. I smile at her, pointing at my Venus pendant. "Archeologicke Exposize?" I ask. She nods and smiles at me, pointing downhill towards the village behind us - Dolni Vestonice. "Yes, Dolni Vestonice, Muzeum!" I make the signs of digging in the ground. She laughs, shakes her head and offers me some grapes. I have to laugh, too, thank her and walk on.
Now here must be the place. In front of me a vast empty potato field stretches all the way downhill. Next to it is a little place with hard grass and some small bushes. I walk towards the bushes and sink in to my knees - Bingo! This is historical ground, here they have been digging, the professors. Mammoth bones lay around here, as big as my collie, wolf skulls have been found with the spear heads still sticking in their jaw bones. Here our ancestors fought against their enemies. And the venus and other goddess figurines, here they have been waiting in the lap of mother Earth. I sit down on the dry earth and try to imagine what this area looked like before the artificial lake covered the lower parts.
I compare the picture of the venus in the archeology book with the pendant I'm wearing. Thinking about what I learned from Dr. Felicitas Goodman about shamanic body postures and trance (she tried the postures of the old statues with her students and found out stunning experiences in and about trance), I get up and stand like the Venus of Vestonice. I take a deep breath, roots grow from my feet.
A deep calmness, security, trust spreads within me. Time is not important, 25.000 years more or less... time does not have to be cut and measured anymore. I feel the wind on my skin, the warm sun on my face, the stability of the earth who carries me, yesterday, today, tomorrow. Peace and harmony well up within me and a trust that has not been there before. Yes, I can imagine it - the maker of the figurine who wanted to give this feeling to others - the image of an earth mother spreading the feeling by touching her: I am here, I have always been with you, and I give you the power, calmness and stability you need in this very moment.
Walking back down to Pavlov I find the hidden hints to Venus still being here - as a pictograph she is looking at me from the windshield of a city bus, and the small inn next to my parking place is named "U Venuse", the Venus. Maybe people held these small, voluptuous goddesses in their hands when they faced critical situations - women giving birth, men hunting mammoth and aurochs, or simply when they wanted some calm moments after a hard day. I am here, I have always been here, and here shall I ever be - that's what they say to me and others, the Venus of Vestonice and her colleagues, yesterday and tomorrow, for all of us to feel and see.
References
- Buňatová, M., 1999: Textilní produkce v mladém paleolitu, experiment pro dokumentární film "Úsvit géniů", in: AR LI, Praha, 104 - 111.
- Jelinek, J., 1975: The Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Evolution of Man, Hamlyn (1975), 552p
- Musil, R., 1968: Stranska Skala: Its Meaning for Pleistocene Studies, Current Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 5, Part 2 (Dec., 1968), pp. 534-539
- Neustupný, E. and Neustupný, J., 1960: Czechoslovakia before the Slavs. In: Ancient Peoples and Places. Thames and Hudson, London.
- Soffer, O., Adovasio, J., Hyland, D, 2000: Reply, Current Anthropology; Aug-Oct2000, Vol. 41 Issue 4, p531-537, 7p
- Sosna, D., 2000: Počátky textilnictví. PhD. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Masaryk University, Brno.
-
Svoboda J., 2001. Gravettian mammoth bone deposits in Moravia The World of Elephants - International Congress, Rome 2001
http://en.sovraintendenzaroma.it/content/download/4819/62548/file/359_362.pdf - Urbanová , K., ca 1999: Textilnictví v prehistorii, http://uprav.ff.cuni.cz/pages/semi/3.prednaska.pdf