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... The chronology for M-UP transition human activities in Central Europe has primarily been built using radiocarbon dates. Key sites dating to the M-UP transition include Willendorf II (Nigst et al., 2008(Nigst et al., , 2014 and Krems-Hundsteig (Neugebauer-Maresch, 2008) in Austria; Dzerav a Skala and Certova Pec in Slovakia (summary in Kaminsk a, 2015); eight cave sites in the Bükk Mountains of Hungary including Szeleta, Pesk} o, and Ist all osk} o (Kadi c, 1916;V ert es, 1961;Mester, 2002Mester, , 2014Hedges, 2008e2009;Davies et al., 2015); and Dzier _ zisław (Fajer et al., 2005), Nietoperzowa Cave (summary in Cyrek et al., 2012), and Luboty n (Połtowicz-Bobak et al., 2013) in Poland. The M-UP transition in Czech Republic is represented at sites such as Mlade c Caves (summary in Teschler-Nicola, 2006), Str ansk a Sk ala Svoboda and Bar-Yosef, 2003), Vedrovice V (Valoch et al., 1993), Bohunice (Valoch, 1976;Tostevin and Skrdla, 2006;Richter et al., 2009), Moravský Krumlov IV Nerudov a, 2009, 2010), Milovice (Oliva, 1993), Zele sice ( Skrdla et al., 2010, and Pod Hradem Cave (Valoch, 1965;Nerudov a et al., 2012b). ...
In 1956-1958, excavations of Pod Hradem Cave in Moravia (eastern Czech Republic) revealed evidence
for human activity during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition. This spanned 25,050-44,800 cal BP
and contained artefacts attributed to the Aurignacian and Szeletian cultures, including those made from
porcelanite (rarely used at Moravian Paleolithic sites). Coarse grained excavation techniques and major
inversions in radiocarbon dates meant that site chronology could not be established adequately. This
paper documents re-excavation of Pod Hradem in 2011-2012. A comprehensive AMS dating program
using ultrafiltration and ABOx-SC pre-treatments provides new insights into human occupation at Pod
Hradem Cave. Fine-grained excavation reveals sedimentary units spanning approximately 20,000 years
of the Early Upper Paleolithic and late Middle Paleolithic periods, thus making it the first archaeological
cave site in the Czech Republic with such a sedimentary and archaeological record. Recent excavation
confirms infrequent human visitation, including during the Early Aurignacian by people who brought
with them portable art objects that have no parallel in the Czech Republic. Raw material diversity of
lithics suggests long-distance imports and ephemeral visits by highly mobile populations throughout the
EUP period.
... The dark horizontal bars show major advances of Alpine glaciers (black: proven, gray: assumed). The horizontal blue bar indicates the time period when strong permafrost occurred in loess deposits of Lower Austria (Haesaerts et al., 1996; Nigst et al., 2008; Thiel et al., 2011b). The green bars mark intervals when major valleys and basins in the Eastern Alps were ice-free ( compilation in Starnberger et al., 2011) Die glaziale Klimadynamik Festländische Klimaarchive wie beispielsweise das Eis der heute noch existierenden Eisschilde in Grönland und der Antarktis bieten die Möglichkeit den Klimaverlauf innerhalb der langen Glaziale genauer zu rekonstruieren. ...
... The interpretation of the Châtelperronian as resulting from an acculturation at a distance of late Neanderthals who observed modern human Aurignacian technology (Hublin et al., 1996) clearly depends on the temporal relation between the Châtelperronian and Aurignacian. At Les Cottés the two phases are well separated but a comparison shows that the Châtelperronian of Les Cottés is contemporaneous to the Aurignacian (Proto and Early) of other sites in Europe (Haesaerts et al., 1996;Higham et al., 2009;Hoffecker et al., 2008;Nigst et al., 2008;Sirakov et al., 2007;Szmidt et al., 2010). Potentially the most important site in the region is the Grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure, which has a complete but shorter sequence and which is almost (there is no Early Aurignacian at Arcy-sur-Cure) analogous to Les Cottés, but a recent re-assessment showed doubts about the validity of the stratigraphy (Higham et al., 2010). ...
... At the top of the sequence at Les Cottés the final Early Aurignacian US 02 is distinctly different from the underlying phases, and has the youngest dates for this type of assemblage in Europe (Haesaerts et al., 1996;Higham et al., 2009;Hoffecker et al., 2008;Nigst et al., 2008;Sirakov et al., 2007;Szmidt et al., 2010). ...
The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition is the key period for our understanding of Neanderthal and modern human interactions in Europe. The site of Les Cottés in south-west France is one of the rare sites with a complete and well defined sequence covering this transition period. We undertook an extensive radiocarbon dating program on mammal bone which allows us to propose a chronological framework of five distinct phases dating from the Mousterian to the Early Aurignacian at this site. We found that the Mousterian and Châtelperronian industries are separated from the overlying Protoaurignacian by a gap of approximately 1000 calendar years. Based on a comparison with Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe we see an overlap in the ages of Châtelperronian industries and Aurignacian lithic assemblages, which are usually associated with Anatomical Modern Humans, which is consistent with an acculturation at distance model for these late Neanderthals. The Proto and Early Aurignacian appear contemporaneous indicating that this transition was rapid in this region. Anatomically Modern Humans are present at the site of Les Cottés at least at 39,500 cal BP roughly coincident with the onset of the cold phase Heinrich 4.
The origin and key details of the making of the ~ 30,000 year old Venus from Willendorf remained a secret since its discovery for more than a hundred years. Based on new micro-computed tomography scans with a resolution of 11.5 µm, our analyses can explain the origin as well as the choice of material and particular surface features. It allowed the identification of internal structure properties and a chronological assignment of the Venus oolite to the Mesozoic. Sampling numerous oolite occurrences ranging ~ 2500 km from France to the Ukraine, we found a strikingly close match for grain size distribution near Lake Garda in the Southern Alps (Italy). This might indicate considerable mobility of Gravettian people and long-time transport of artefacts from South to North by modern human groups before the Last Glacial Maximum.
The research in the Pod hradem Cave in the Moravian Karst yielded a small but interesting assemblage of chipped stone artefacts (Valoch 1965). The article aims to revise the identification and provenance of the raw material of part of the chipped stone industry; to analyze a bifacial artefact, and to refine the chrono - stratigraphical position of the archaeological horizons. The new data brought further incentives for the study of human behavior at the beginning of the Early Upper Palaeolithic.
The formation of the large site clusters of the Gravettian (Pavlovian) represents one of the final effects of modern human adaptation in central Europe, but chronology of the site formation processes at such sites are still little understood. Here we present new evidence from Pavlov I, a site now prepared for the construction of a museum and subjected to a large-scale preparatory excavation. Understanding the spatial organisation, microstratigraphies, and the effects of cryogenic processes on the site formation is the basic presumption for lithic analysis at a large and complex site. Obviously, these extensive sites have a longer prehistory than was previously thought. The detection of the Early Upper Palaeolithic/Gravettian boundary was related to a radical change in the lithic raw material composition. The early and evolved Gravettian industries complete previously recorded the techno/typological spectrum by additional microlithic assemblages. With this new evidence, the paper also discusses the question of Gravettian origin.
The detection of raw materials used in the production of flaked stone tools has served as a necessary methodological component within the field of archaeology. Nevertheless, controversial debates concerning accurate terminology for Sio2 varities have inspired a terminological lacuna between the fields of geology, mineralogy and archaeology. This is due to the fact that SiO2 rocks never formed the main focus of Earth Sciences, resulting in an inconsistent terminology and at times lacking a proper definition. As a result of years of research, a classification system for rocks from the chert group has been developed at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This paper intends to give a practical approach to this classification system based on petrological, mineralogical and archaeological demands.
Creating an overall scheme of Gravettian stratigraphy and chronology in the Middle Danube area is a matter of current debate. This paper addresses the formation of microstratigraphies at large open-air sites, evidence of the earliest Gravettian occupation in the Dolní Věstonice-Pavlov area, and occurrence of early ceramics from this context. The case presented here is a complex early Gravettian microstratigraphy of charcoal deposits at Dolní Věstonice IIa with a sequence of AMS dates between 28.4 and 31.7 ka uncal BP (30–33 ka cal BC) and two middle Gravettian (Pavlovian) dates from the nearby living floor. The associated environmental evidence of charcoal, pollen, molluscs, and vertebrates shows that climatic development through the six horizons was relatively stable, but with a certain variability in moisture and extension of forest. In horizon 3c, the molluscs and both small and large vertebrates indicate an episode of restricted forest formation around 28.4 ka uncal BP (30–31 ka cal BC). Baked clay (“ceramic”) fragments from horizon 3c represent the earliest dated items of this kind in the Gravettian. Microstratigraphies of this type demonstrate the complexity of cultural deposits at the large Gravettian sites and throw light on the hitherto poorly understood time-period of the early Gravettian in Moravia.
The Middle Danube area is one of the key regions of Europe, in which significant interactions between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans occurred at the transition of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. In the last few decades, interdisciplinary research of the key sites has produced valuable findings that may be applied in the creation of a model of the populations’ behaviour in the area. Characteristic features of archaeological cultures in the given period may be reconstructed on the grounds of a critical assessment of the available data. A model of the development of the Palaeolithic at the transition between its Middle and Upper phases was created through a comparison of technology, typology, composition, and distribution of lithic raw materials, settlement strategies, and dating of archaeological sites. The model assumes a relatively long occupation of Neanderthals in Moravia, with Szeletian, the manifestation of their material culture, territorially respecting Bohunician, the penecontemporaneous culture. Judging by the known radiocarbon dating, anatomically modern humans penetrated to Moravia relatively late, and their arrival was probably a cause of disappearance of the Bohunician. Distribution of lithic raw materials and a typological comparison suggest a possibility of local interactions between Aurignacian and the developed Szeletian.
