Dolni Vestonice

Dolní Věstonice 

an Upper Paleolithic archaeological site in Czechoslovakia, on the outskirts of the city of Mikulov in southern Moravia. Dolni Vestonice was part of either the Pavlov or the eastern Gravettian culture. According to radioactive carbon dating, it is 25,000-30,000 years old. Dolni Vestonice was excavated by the Czech scientists K. Absolon (1924-38) and B. Klima (1947-52). Large accumulations of mammoth bones, stone and flint tools, and many works of art made of mammoth tusks (a small male head and pendants of stylized female images) and fired clay (a realistic female figurine, figurines of mammoths, bears, wild horses, a rhinoceros, and so forth) were found. The remains of two dwellings were unearthed: an oval one (15 x 9m), with five hearths, and a round one (6 m in diameter) with one hearth in the center in which clay figurines were fired. Over 2,000 lumps of fired clay and half-finished articles were found, some of which still bore traces of modeling and imprints of human fingers. Several human skulls were found and a burial of a woman lying in a flexed position and covered with mammoth shoulder blades.

REFERENCES

Boriskovskii, P. I. “Ocherki po paleolitu Tsentral’noi i lugoVostochnoi Evropy.” In the collection Sovetskaia arkheologiia,fasc. 27. Moscow, 1957.
Klima, B. Dolni Vestonice. Prague, 1963.

P. I. BORISKOVSKII