The Upper Paleolithic burial area at Predmostı: ritual and taphonomy

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Journal of Human Evolution 54 (2008) 15e33

The Upper Paleolithic burial area at Predmostı: ritual and taphonomy

Jirı A. Svoboda

Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic CZ-69129 Dolnı Vestonice 25, Czech Republic

Received 12 September 2006; accepted 1 May 2007

Abstract

Paleoanthropological materials from Predmostı, recovered by J. Wankel in 1884, K.J. Maska in 1894, M. Krı�z in 1895, and K. Absolon in1928 (and probably 1930), represent one of the largest collections of early modern human remains. Unfortunately, most of these fossils weredestroyed in 1945. The aim of this paper is to create a list of finds in accordance with the discovery dates, to place them into the spatial andchronological context of the site, and to compare them with the evidence from recent excavation in 2006.

Two competing hypotheses are raised in the literature suggesting that the Predmostı individuals represent either a contemporary burial asa consequence of one catastrophic event, or a gradual accumulation of human bodies at one place. Whereas the first hypothesis is supportedby the demographic structure of the buried group, including adults and children, the second interpretation is based on stratigraphic and tapho-nomic analysis of the burial area itself.

Using the original documentation of Maska and other early researchers, and my own experience from recent excavation in the remaining partof the site, I attempt to reconstruct the plan of the site, with a focus on spatial distribution of the human fossils, especially in the main burial area.I suggest that the burial place was not the settlement center, but rather a peripheral and task-specific area. The determining factor for locationof the burial area was likely the remarkable Skalka rock, a cliff that rose directly above the site. A long-term tendency to place the dead ‘‘belowthe rock’’ may have given rise to the accumulation of human remains at a single place, with a scatter of dispersed fragments in the vicinity. Atthis location, the human bodies were partly protected by soil coverage, limestone debris, and mammoth scapulae, but were also affected bypostdepositional processes such as redeposition of sediments, predator activities, and later human activities, including the burial of additionalcorpses.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Modern humans; Gravettian; Burials; Rituals; Taphonomy; Predmostı

Introduction

Few paleolithic sites in Europe have as long and complexa research history as Predmostı in the Moravian region ofthe Czech Republic (Table 1; Wankel, 1884, 1892; Maska,1886, 1894a,b, 1895a,b; Krı�z, 1894, 1896a,b,c, 1903;Absolon, 1918, 1929; Breuil, 1925; Knies, 1927; Zotz andFreund, 1951; Klıma, 1973, 1990, 1991a; Absolon and Klıma,1977; Svoboda et al., 1994, 1996; Oliva, 2001a,b; Svoboda,2001a, 2005a; Zilhao and Trinkaus, 2002;). The area is impor-tant for several reasons, including its key geographic location

E-mail address: [email protected]

0047-2484/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.05.016

in western Eurasia. Three sites (Predmostı IeIII) were origi-nally clustered around two limestone formations dominatingthe southern entrance of the Moravian Gate, which is one ofthe most important valley passages of Upper Pleistocene Eu-rope for both humans and other animals (Fig. 1). Predmostıyielded not only immense amounts of mammoth and otheranimal bones, artifacts, and decorative and symbolic items,but also an important assemblage of Upper Paleolithic(Gravettian) human fossils. Unfortunately, industrial exploita-tion of loess and limestone in the past, and the insufficientlydocumented excavations, have resulted in almost completedestruction of this site. Two key monographs are essentialfor the archaeology (Absolon and Klıma, 1977) and paleoan-thropology (Matiegka, 1934, 1938) of the site, but both were

mailto:[email protected]

Fig. 2. Sketch of the Predmostı I site in 1882 (after Maska, 1882: 112e113). In

the south abandoned limestone quarry (former Skalka rock), in the north the

clay pit. Archive of the Institute of Archaeology, AS CR, Brno.

Table 1

Summary table of the main excavators at Predmostı

Excavator Years

Jindrich Wankel 1880e1882, 1884, 1886

Karel J. Maska 1882e1884, 1889e1895

Jaroslav Klvana 1889

Martin Krı�z 1894e1897

Jan Knies especially 1923

Karel Absolon 1924e1935

Hermann Schwabedissen 1943

Karel Zebera et al. 1952e1954

Bohuslav Klıma 1971e1973, 1975e1976, 1982e1983

Jirı Svoboda et al. 1989e1992, 2002, 2006

16 J. A. Svoboda / Journal of Human Evolution 54 (2008) 15e33

written after the major discoveries and, thus, in fact, are sec-ondary sources, with all the biases and missunderstandingthat the delays in publication can produce.

The human remains were recovered by J. Wankel in 1884,K.J. Maska in 1894, M. Krı�z in 1895, and K. Absolon in 1928(and perhaps also 1930). All of these finds were concentratedwithin the site designated Predmostı I, located west of the for-merdnow exhausteddlimestone outcrop named Skalka(Fig. 2). The largest accumulation of human skeletons wasthat found by Maska in 1894, concentrated at one spot ofonly 2.5 m by 4 m in size; the other finds are mostly fragmentsdispersed in the cultural layer in the vicinity. The first inven-tory of these finds (nos. 1e19) was drawn up by K.J. Maskaon pp. 70e71 of his diary. During processing of the materialfor his planned monograph, Maska compiled lists of bonesfor each individual. Later, other inventories were drawn up:nos. 1e27 by J. Matiegka (1934) and 1e29 by E. Vl�cek(1971), which added the finds of Wankel, Krı�z and Absolon.There is, however, certain disagreement amongst the catalogsand original field data in numeration and description of theremains.

Following Maska’s unpublished statistical tables, the indi-viduals 1e10 and 15 are relatively complete skeletons, whilethe others are fragmentary. The altogether 20 individuals later

Fig. 1. Surface reconstruction of the geomorphology of the southwestern edge

of the Moravian Gate, showing location of the sites Predmostı IeIII. The scale

along the bottom edge is in meters.

examined by Matiegka (1934, 1938) were mosty young. Onlythe male numbered 14 (no. 15 in Maska’s numeration) couldbe considered relatively old (40e50 years), and the male no.3 was 35e40 years old. The remaining six adults (half ofwhich were females) were probably younger than 30 years,two individuals (girls?) were aged between 10e12 and 15e16 years, seven children were younger than 10 years, and threewere less than one year old. In 1945, this unique collection ofhuman fossils was burned, together with other important Pa-leolithic finds from Moravia, in a catastrophic fire in the castleof Mikulov. Only rare specimens, such as two fragmentaryhuman mandibles Predmostı 21 and 26, were recently redis-covered in museum collections and records (Drozdova,2001, 2002; Vl�cek, 2005). An anthropological revision ofthe entire assemblage, based on the preserved photographicglass plates made by J. Matiegka and on casts, is in progress(Katina et al., 2004; Velemınska et al., 2004).

The existing contextual data concerning these humanfossils are unfortunately insufficient. Of Wankel’s finds, onlya short description is available (Wankel, 1884). FromK.J. Maska we have the field diary with daily records, sometopographic sketches, and stratigraphic sections, the mostimportant being his diary volumes I (Maska, 1882) and VII(Maska, 1894c). These records are now deposited at the Insti-tute of Archaeology, Brno and Dolnı Vestonice. In addition,there are fragments of Maska’s unpublished manuscripts andpreliminary statistical tables at the Masaryk University,

17J. A. Svoboda / Journal of Human Evolution 54 (2008) 15e33

Brno, and summary publications, unfortunately lacking anyplans or illustrations (Maska, 1895a,b, 1896). From M. Krı�zthere is an illustrated publication (Krı�z, 1896a,b,c, 1903),with a general plan showing the location of his trenches rela-tive to Maska’s. From K. Absolon there is a verbal description(Absolon, 1929) and a plan (Absolon and Klıma, 1977, theirFig. 36), but, again, there is no certainty as to the precise lo-cation of the human fossil finds.

Since no general plan of the burial area was left by the ex-cavators, later efforts to reconstruct it were presented based onthe sketches and verbal description. The first reconstruction ofthe burial area was the idealized version of K. Absolon, thatwas evidently based on Maska’s publications alone. It depictsMaska’s term the ‘‘human heaps’’ and attempts to show thedelimitation of the grave with mammoth scapulae. A later re-construction by B. Klıma (1990, 1991a) also returns to Mas-ka’s sketches, slightly idealized, to which other objects andthe expected outlines of the unrecorded human bodies havebeen added.

The aim of the present paper is not to repeat the wealth ofarchaeological, anthropological, and paleoenvironmental dataon Predmostı, as presented in the above-mentioned publica-tions. Neither shall I comment on the physical anthropologyand demography of the human fossil assemblage (cf. Katinaet al., 2004; Velemınska et al., 2004). Instead, I shall followtwo lines of research. First, I shall focus in more detail onthe primary field documentation left by the previous excava-tors, mainly by Maska, in order to reconstruct and explainthe context of the human fossil finds (Table 2, Fig. 3). Second,I shall use the new data from a 2006 excavation in the still pre-served portion of the site (Site Ib) to draw general conclusionsabout spatial patterning and chronology of the site.

Maska’s original diaries, namely volume VIIdincludingthe critical excavation year of 1894dcontain schematicmaps, sections, sketches of (some) bone scatters and otherfind situations, administrative notes, and the text, organizedby day (Maska, 1894c). This is a type of primary documenta-tion intended for personal use, to refresh the memory duringfurther processing of the material and during the writing of

Table 2

Summary table of the paleoanthropological finds from Predmostı, site Ia (for spat

Find no. Finder Date of discovery Further data

1. J. Wankel 1884 Chrome�cek’s clay p

2. K.J. Maska May 18th, 1894 North

3. K.J. Maska Aug.7theSept.10th, 1894 Burial site

4. K.J. Maska Aug.18th, 1894 Northwest, uncertai

5. K.J. Maska Aug.23rd, 1894 South

6. K.J. Maska Aug. 24the28th, 1894 Southeast

7. K.J. Maska Aug. 24th, 1894 South

8. K.J. Maska Aug. 30th South

9. K.J. Maska Aug. 4th/Sept. 10th, 1894 Northeast, during re

10. M. Krı�z June 25th, 1895, and later Chrome�cek: trench

11. M. Krı�z 1895 Chrome�cek: trench

12. M. Krı�z 1895 Chrome�cek: trench

13. M. Krı�z 1895 Dokoupil: trench V

14. K. Absolon August, 1928, 1930

the definitive monograph that the author has planned. Asa text it makes for monotonous reading, which attains shapeonly if the data recorded for particular dates are projectedinto the site. Thus, by reconstructing the daily movements ofthe excavator in the area, we shall order his records into theirspatial context. This approach concerns the 1894 excavationarea in general (Fig. 4) as well as the burial area in particular(Figs. 5e9).

Contrary to Klıma, we shall limit ourselves to Maska’soriginal sketches and verbal comments, which we attempt toarrange into a certaindalbeit incompletedsystem, making al-lowances also for the fact of overlapping of the bodies in thecentral accumulation. In its rough outline, however, our overallresult (Fig. 8) is not basically different from Klıma’s (1990,1991a).

The spatial structure and stratigraphy of Predmostı

Of the several timely descriptions of the original appear-ance of the site, the brief and best-fitting was given by J. Knies(1927: 106; cf. Fig. 1): ‘‘The form of the elevation originallycomprised a crest-shaped and saddled outcrop of Devonianlimestone, from which high above rose two rocky formations,of which the northern was called Hradisko and the southernSkalka.’’

The limestone core of Hradisko was to a great extent cov-ered by loess and is still preserved; it was recently excavatedas a predominantly Middle Paleolithic site (site Predmostı II;Svoboda et al., 1994, 1996). Skalka was quarried out duringthe 19th century, so that the archaeologists were aware of itfrom recorded information rather than first-hand experience.In fact, it must have been a rather imposing rock formation,accessible from the north but steeply cut to the south, and‘‘higher than the church tower in Predmostı’’ (Maska,1894a), the importance of which was reflected in the legendof the footprint of St. Adalbert on its peak (Skutil, 1951).The most important parts of the Gravettian settlements, nowdestroyed and only partly excavated, extended north andwest of Skalka (the site of Predmostı Ia). The cultural layers

ial reconstruction see Fig. 3)

Characteristics Human manipulation

it Lower jaw

Part of a lower jaw, humerus

Skeletons 1e10, 15; others incomplete

n Ulna

Pelvis Perforation

Lower jaw, skull fragment, ulna,

radius, humerus, ribs

Skull fragment, humerus

Rib

moval Phalanx, ulna, humerus

VIII Skull, lower jaw

IV Lower jaw

II Two femurs

II Skull fragment, two humeri,

two ulnae, radius fragment

54 limb bones, two teeth, lower jaw Cutmarks

Fig. 4. Sketch of the area excavated in 1894 (after Maska, 1894c: 25). The ar-

rows indicate the supposed directions of the excavation, the letters correspond

to the main sectors: northern zone (N), northeast (NE), northwest (NW), south-

east (SE), south (S), southwest (SW). The burial area is hatched.

Fig. 3. General plan of Sites Ia and Ib, showing areas excavated by the indi-

vidual researchers and location of the paleoanthropological finds. Full point:

relatively certain location; empty point: generally estimated location; the circle

indicating the Skalka rock is a very approximate reconstruction.


are still partly preserved below the Predmostı cemetery (thesite of Predmostı Ib). From other areas around this rock, weonly have scarce records of huge accumulations of ‘‘giantbones’’, dating as early as the 16th century. Predmostı III isa smaller Gravettian site in lower elevation, south of Skalka.

Concerning the within-site spatial distribution and pat-terning at the main site of Predmostı I, some later authorssuspect that ground plans of dwellings remained unrecog-nized by the early excavators. Of course, such a possibilityis open to discussion, but regular circular features of bonesand stones would probably be noted if present. Whateverthe situation was, it appears that a difference may beobserved in density of artifacts and in regularity of pattern-ing of the hearths and bone accumulations between thenorthern and western sections of the site. In the north, thefirst researchers recorded regular hearths (diameter: 1.5e2 m; depth: 20e30 cm), surrounded by find scatters rich inartifacts and bones; in addition, mammoth bones wereselected and arranged in certain groups after type of bone.In the west, the bone deposits were still large butirregular, with evidence of extensive burning, and associatedartifacts were less numerous in these contexts. Our 2006excavation clarified, in fact, a situation of the second type.

Another question concerns stratigraphy at Predmostı I.Both Maska and Krı�z described several (two or three) UpperPaleolithic layers, but it was unclear whether this complexstratigraphy reflects a real sequence of occupations throughtime, or whether it resulted from redeposition of the samelayer along the slope. Stratigraphy and datings from the2006 excavation support the first interpretation, that is a longerinterval of Gravettian occupations at this site, comprising boththe Pavlovian and Willendorf-Kostenkian stages (Table 3; cf.Svoboda, 2003; Joris and Weninger, 2004).

Jindrich Wankel (1884)

The northern and probably the most attractive part of theSite I was investigated along the edge of the Chrome�cekclay pit (over a length of ca. 100 m) by J. Wankel (1884).There are no more precise data as to how large an area he ex-cavated. However, Wankel found accumulations of mammothbones, partly sorted by element (e.g., 50 molars at one point,a pile of tusks), along with numerous stone and bone artifacts.Given the richness of the finds and sorting of the animal bones,we may consider the northern part of Site I to be a more typ-ical settlement zone. An isolated find of a human mandiblewas an exception in this context. This item was described byWankel as follows:

‘‘I also found, beneath a massive mammoth thigh bone, theright half of a human lower jaw, and lifted it myself from theash in which it had been deposited. This jaw shows two gap

Fig. 5. Case of a relatively complete human skeleton (Maska, 1894c: 38e39). On August 10, 1894, Maska uncovers in the middle part of the area several human

skeletons in the upper level, of which he draws the male no. 3. Archive of the Institute of Archaeology, AS CR, Brno.


teeth and behind them the three rear molars, evidently froma female person of medium size, a little older than 24 yearsof age; and it is at just that place where it adjoined its secondhalf that the jaw was anciently broken; in terms of dimensions,it does not differ from the lower jaws of modern man.’’(Wankel, 1884: 96).

The jaw is described again by K.J. Maska (1886), to whomit was lent for the purposes of his paper, by J. Havelka (1886);Maska, by contrast, pointed out the differences between thisfossil and modern populations. The jaw was recorded as no.21 in the monographs of J. Matiegka (1934, 1938), and Vl�cek(1971) incorrectly states that it is housed in the MoravianMuseum. Thus, most authors have automatically regarded itas destroyed, as is the whole anthropological assemblagefrom Predmostı. In 2000, however, along with P. Prochazkovawe identified this specimen in the museum exhibition at Olo-mouc and handed it over for a new description to E. Drozdova(2001, 2002).

Karel Jaroslav Maska (1894)

Between 1882 and 1893, Maska (as did Wankel before him)operated in the northern part of Site I, again uncovering sortedanimal bones, including 13 mammoth tusks and four mam-moth skulls in the same place. The hearths were regular inshape, and artifacts and decorative objects of stone and bonewere also numerous. However, in spring of 1894, as Maska en-tered the western part of the site, the situation seems to have

changed slightly. The animal bones were numerous but no lon-ger sorted, and the artifacts were less frequent so that evenfinding single, standard types was worth mentioning in thediary.

Unfortunately, Maska’s method of exavation did not yetemploy a regular grid (this was first done by M. Krı�z), andhis excavations instead expanded daily in concentric bands(Fig. 4). This evidently suited Maska’s laborers, and Wankelperhaps proceeded likewise. Such a system complicates eventhe approximate localization of finds from the area to a specificdate. In several cases, and particularly with the anthropologi-cal finds, data is recorded for the day and band and is comple-mented by additional dimensions, such as the distance fromthe edge of the quarry. Thus, in some cases it is possible to in-fer a rough localization of the findspot.

The excavations in the summer of 1894 expanded to thesouth the area already investigated in the spring. The approachwas fundamentally the same as in the spring; excavationsstarted at the northeastern corner (now covered by the wel-come shade of an elm tree), and work progressed in concentricbands to the southwest. However, the discovery of the humanburial area at the beginning of August altered the pattern of theexcavations. Some of the anthropological finds were left insitu, and further excavation to the southeast and south thenstarted from this spot.

Following this model (Fig. 4), we have divided the investi-gated area into sectors that roughly correspond to the chronol-ogy of the investigations: a northern sector (the spring

Fig. 6. Later reconstruction of the male Predmostı 3 from the 1930s, by

K. Absolon for purposes of museum exhibition. Archive of the Institute of

Archaeology, AS CR, Brno.


excavations), the northeast sector (July excavations), the burialarea, the northwest, the southeast, a southern sector, and thesouthwest (all excavated in August). This is, naturally, sche-matic. A more precise outline of the whole area, as presentedin Fig. 3, was received by projecting Maska’s sketch into a gen-eral site plan made the following year by M. Krı�z (1903: 50).

The northern zone (spring 1894)

In comparison with previous excavations, during whichhearths, accumulations of sorted mammoth bones (groups oftusks, skulls), and, above all, numerous pieces of stone andbone industry were found (Maska, 1894a,b), the northern sec-tor is somewhat peripheral in nature. A description of the sit-uation in the spring of 1894 attests to the stacks of mammothbones, which, however, did not form a contiguous cover, but

rather separate, spatially distinct accumulations. This wouldalso explain the larger number of bones from smaller preda-tors, including complete wolf skeletons, and the lowerfrequency of artifacts (as inferred by the fact that even isolatedoccurrences were recorded). The limestone debris was angularin the upper layers and rounded in the subsoil.

The first human remains were reported on May 18th: ‘‘attwo places, 9 and 11 m from the edge, human remains: thelower part of a humerus and the back end of a lower jaw.Unfortunately, both incomplete’’. This find is approximatelylocalizable, if the distances of 9 m and 11 m from the edgeof the loess wall are projected onto the band investigated onMay 18th in Maska (1894c: 16). However, the anatomical de-scription of the finds does not agree with the later catalogue(no. 20), which lists a humerus, a fibula, an ulna, and twoteeth, and omits the lower jaw (Matiegka, 1934, 1938).

In addition, Maska recorded finds of flakes, blades, andbone tools, including six ‘‘cylinders’’ made of mammothivory. Among the fauna, mainly mammoth, fox, and wolfare noted, and sporadically reindeer, horse, moose, bear, andlion. The mammoth remains are mainly tusks, molars, and ver-tebrae, and sporadically skulls, scapulae, and ribs.

The northeast sector (July 24theAugust 6th, 1894)

During July, 1894, a sector was gradually uncovered in thenortheastern part of the new area. The cultural layer comprisedash lenses lying in two or more horizons (Fig. on page 24 inMaska, 1894c). During this period, Maska divided his recordsinto Layer I (the upper) and Layer II (the lower). Further, henotes an area of rounded limestone debris, mainly at thebase of this stratigraphic sequence (‘‘seats’’, measuring up to50 cm). We presume that this debris entered the area fromthe east, from the former Skalka rock.

The northeastern sector yielded a larger assemblage offlakes, blades, and ‘‘scrapers’’ (‘‘Schaber’’), with individualmentions of a core, an awl, a leafpoint, a hammerstone, a whet-stone, a polished marlstone disc (see ‘The burial area accom-panying artefacts and finds’), a polished ‘‘chisel’’, and twodentalia shells. Among the bone industry, two spatulas andtwo mammoth ivory ‘‘cylinders’’ are mentioned. Predominantamong the fauna are mammoth, reindeer, horse, fox, wolf, andbear, with isolated instances of wolverine, rhinoceros, andbirds. The mammoth bones are mostly tusks, molars, longbones, vertebrae, and ribs, with a few crania, mandibles,limb bones, a scapula, and an innominate. Some of the mate-rial comes directly from the overlying layers of the burial area,before Maska identified it as such.

On August 3rd, Maska turned south, thus encountering theburial area. The overlying layers were in fact dug out on Au-gust 3rde4th, ‘‘.so that any of the workers, the numerouswatchers and I myself could realize that at just shallow depthsbelow the stones something important lay’’ (Maska, 1895b:163). On August 4th, he observes vertically-set mammothbones in the area, both scapulae and long bones ‘‘perhapsalso two mammoth lower jaws, lying on each other some2 m east of the grave (Fig. on pages 32e33 in Maska,

Fig. 7. Case of a heavily disturbed human skeleton (Maska, 1894c: 66e67). On September 10, 1894, Maska documents the last preserved skeletal associations,

probably from the lower levels of the burial area. Archive of the Institute of Archaeology, AS CR, Brno.


1894c), relate directly to the human grave’’. This was laterconfirmed, since in his concluding remarks (Maska, 1894c:72 and addendum on page 32) he adds that he discovered threehuman bones (an adult phalanx, a child’s ulna and probablya humerus) directly below and during removal of these mam-moth bones. However, the central burial area was not regis-tered before August 7th.

The burial area (August 7the13th and September 10th, 1894)

Maska did not draw up an overall plan of the ‘‘grave’’, butstuck instead to partial sketches, probably due to the unclearstratigraphic situation and the technical problem of expressingthe overlapping bones; in his own words, they lay ‘‘next to andon top of each other’’ (Maska, 1895a,b) . Another problemwas the irregular excavation system.

The outline of the burial area is described narratively as anelliptical shape, the axis running northeast, (Maska, 1895a,b),measured, and sketched on page 40 in Maska (1894c). In re-constructing the interior, we base our conclusions on dailymovement of the diggers within the area (Fig. 8, right).From the general plan (Fig. 4), it follows that Maska ap-proached the ‘‘grave’’ from the northeast but did not recognizeit before reaching its southern end, where the limestone debriscover (previously regarded as substrate) ended: ‘‘many smallbones of arctic fox were scattered, somewhat deeper thanthe other parts of the lower cultural layer, such as metatarsalsand a calf bone which I have discovered suddenly’’ (Maska,1895b: 162). Therefore, we localized the point of

departuredthe first sketch from August 7th, at the southernedge of the area (Maska, 1894c: 34 below in the diary); the up-per sketch, some 1 m distant to the north and, thus, drawn inthe diary in the upwards direction (even across the text writtenpreviously), indicates that on the same day Maska returnedback to the north, below the debris area. The rich finds fromAugust 8th are described only narratively, but are said to lay‘‘to the side’’ and ‘‘in the direction south-north’’. On one ofthe skulls lay a fragment of mammoth shoulder blade, the firstof three found, which has thus been localized to the northeast-ern corner. The debris at this place was both over and belowthe human finds.

The repeated burials at the same place (‘‘everything layseparately in the yellow earth’’, Aug. 7th), perhaps linked tolighting fires (‘‘beneath the skull was a layer of charcoal anda clear ash layer’’, Aug. 7th; ‘‘a black, burned layer lay onthe person’’ Aug. 8th), illustrates the complexity of thesituation.

On August 9th and 10th, Maska reached the very center(‘‘mittlere Grube’’, ‘‘Menschenhaufen’’), where he counteda total of six skeletons; but on the 9th, he depicts only partsof the lower limbs and a skull (Maska, 1894c: 37) and onthe 10th the most complete skeleton including vertebrae andribs and indicating the flexed lower limbs (Maska, 1894c:38, male no. 3; Fig. 5, compare its later reconstruction,Fig. 6). According to the publication, the other skeletons lay‘‘west of here’’, and were temporarily left in place to be laterplaced in crates en bloc. A second mammoth scapula is alsorecorded at this point (worn at the crest and engraved with

Fig. 8. Reconstruction of the burial area and its vicinity, based on original sketches inserted according to the individual excavation days. Only in case of the in-

dividual Predmostı 3 (center) are we sure about the catalog number. Missing bodies are hatched. Right: direction of excavation on the individual working days

(arrows and dates).


lines), evidently the one that Maska mentioned in his publica-tion as being in the northwest.

By the end of August 10th, Maska had already managed toestablish the overall dimensions of the grave, which measuredfour meters in length and three meters in breadth. A day laterthe dimensions were rendered more precise by a drawn outline(Maska, 1894c: 40), where the width was reduced to 2.5 m,and this definitive dimension was then retained in all later pub-lications (Maska, 1895a,b).

On August 11the13th, Maska (1894c) worked within thearea thus delimited, together with ‘‘the most skillful laborer’’,but at the same time the excavations reached into the surround-ing area, and into the hitherto uninvestigated southern vicinity.On August 11th, he depicted an arm bone, strongly flexed atthe elbow, lying south of the grave (Maska, 1894c: 40). OnAugust 13th, he turned back (i.e., towards the central area) en-countering a large group of limb bones, covered by a mammothscapula (Maska, 1894c: 42). Evidently, this is the third of the

‘‘marginal’’ scapulae, in later reconstructions localized to thesouthwest edge.

Thus, although only two ‘‘boundary’’ mammoth scapulae arementioned by Maska in his publications (the southwestern andnorthwestern, respectively), the diary mentionsdincludingfragmentsdthree in turn, with one at the northeast as well.(Klıma’s reconstruction, too, shows only two, but at the south-west and northeast.) Because the use of mammoth scapulae asprotective coverage of human bodies was later confirmedelsewhere in South Moravia (Trinkaus and Svoboda, 2006),we maydin individual casesdapply the same interpretationat Predmostı. There was not, however, any sort of a continuouscoverage of the whole burial area.

In the period during and after discovery of the ‘‘grave’’,Maska (1894c) records the discovery of just two bladelets, a ra-cloir or scraper (‘‘Feuersteinschaber’’), and two hammer-stones. No mention of dyes is made. In terms of fauna, herepeatedly mentions mammoth and fox, and occasionally

Fig. 9. Southeastern part of the 1894 area, sketch from August 28: 54e55. Maska’s commentary (1894c): ‘‘ash layers were as if laid on top of each other, mostly

irregular, but with horizontal charcoal bands... Large stones occured everywhere in the cultural layer.’’ Archive of the Institute of Archaeology, AS CR, Brno.


reindeer, horse, wolf, bear, wolverine, and hare. For the loosecanines of various carnivores, mentioned several times, thereis no mention of their being perforated, and these cannot,therefore, be interpreted as pendants. The mammoth boneswere molars, long bones, scapulae, and isolated finds of skull,tusk, and vertebra.

In general, Maska records accumulations of limestoneblocks from the northern and eastern sides, ‘‘not reachingthe southern part’’, and these have separated the anthropolog-ical remains from the overlying cultural layers. Of course, thisdebris continued outside the burial area as well, creatinga kind of circular alignment around the former Skalka rock.In the foot zone it is logical to expect chaotic sedimentationof slope material, redeposited loess, limestone scree, pebbles,and other allochthonous material (Maska, 1894c: 54), whichevidently periodically intruded into the space set aside forburials (‘‘here the layer shows clear bands’’, Aug. 10th; ‘‘anash-grey layer penetrates into the horizon of human bones’’,

Table 3

Prerov - Predmostı, summary table of 14C datings (calibration after Danzeglocke e

Sample Site-context

GrN-6801 Predmostı Ib, excavation 1975, Pavlovian

GrN-6852 Predmostı Ib, excavation 1975, Pavlovian

GrA-32583 Predmostı Ib, excavation 2006, lower layer e Pavlov

GrA-32641 Predmostı Ib, excavation 2006, upper layer e Willen

OxA-5971 Predmostı II, 1992, layer 4, Pavlovian

GrA-29085 Predmostı III, excavation 1984 e contaminated?

Aug. 13th). This attests to repeated deposition of geologic,not anthropogenic, origin.

The last skeletal parts were removed by Maska en bloc, anddrawn and photographed after the excavations had ended (i.e.,on September 10th). The relevant sketches thus appear onpages 65e68 in Maska, 1894c, with only the most essentialcommentary (Fig. 7). It is logical to assume that the last sed-iments excavated were the stratigraphically lowest. On ourfinal plan (Fig. 8), this superposition has been expressedgraphically through overlapping frames that are localizedwest of the male skeleton no. 3.

The northwest (August 14the22nd, 1894)

A sketch on page 25 shows that, on August 14th and 16th,the excavations returned to the northern part of the site, whichMaska had abandoned at the end of July before the discoveryof the burial area, and resurrected the original direction of the

t al., 2007)

date BP date cal BC

26,870� 250 29,670� 240

26,320� 240 29,192� 374

ian 26,780� 140 29,655� 184

dorf-Kostenkian 24,340� 120 27,145� 436

25,040� 320 27,997� 365

16,800� 90 uncalibrated


excavations from hence, northeast to southwest (Maska,1894c). The terrain slopes slightly to the south (Maska,1894c: 47). Maska draws attention to the stratification of thelayers into bands (solifluction?), and notes an extended ashyarea.

In the days that followed (August 17the22nd), the excava-tions reached the western boundary, where they should haveabutted the neighboring plot. Maska repeatedly notes the dou-bling of the cultural layers and the appearance of ashy areas.

On August 18th, an isolated human ulna is recorded thatcannot, however, be more precisely localized within the frame-work of the northwestern sector. Moreover, its geochronolog-ical age is uncertain, given that there was an Iron Age pituncovered at the same time.

In this part of the site there were sporadic occurrences offlakes, a blade, a leafpoint (in the upper layer), a shark’s tooth,and a shell. In the bone assemblage there are six ‘‘cylinders’’of mammoth ivory and above all a ‘‘fork-shaped’’ implement.Dominant species among the fauna are mammoth and wolf,while reindeer, lion, and wolverine are also quite frequent;horse, fox, and hare appear sporadically. There are repeatedrecords of mammoth skulls, tusks, and molars.

Southern edge of the burial area (August 23rde24th, 1894)

On August 23rd, Maska (1894c) returned to the southernedge of the burial, recording an interesting find: ‘‘also a humanpelvic bonedyoung, perforated, 1 cm aperture, entirelyround’’. On the basis of surviving photographs this find waslater published by Klıma (1991b, his Fig. 4), albeit that thedocumented aperture is considerably larger than the one notedby Maska.

On August 24th, when otherwise the work was going on inthe southeastern sector, Maska localized certain finds in thesouthern section: ‘‘southwards from the grave a single humanhumerus, in the middle of the cultural layer. A meter to theeast from there the skull of a young person (for washing),above which two mammoth shoulderblades (if this is notpart of the grave?)’’. This, then, is another case of human findsbeing covered by mammoth scapulae.

The southeast (August 24the28th, 1894)

On these dates the excavations gradually advanced to thesoutheastern tip of the area. In the narrow band between theburial area and the edge of the quarry Maska records the dou-bling or even a greater complexity of cultural layers, in placesquite thick and deposited chaotically (‘‘huge black layers, as ifdisarranged between themselves. Much loess.in the debris,large blocks of granite’’: Maska, 1894c, Aug. 27th, 1894).These are evidently slope sediments along the foot of the for-mer Skalka rock (Fig. 9), but mentioning granite is probablyan error. Here, the mammoth bones appeared in the upperlayer. Human bones were found in this context, reachinghere from the central burial area (Maska, 1894c: 55).

August 24th: ‘‘Ca. 3 m eastwards lay a human lower jawwith teeth facing downwards, so that at first we thought itan upper jaw and skull. The jaw lay 10 cm above a thick char-coal layer (the lower cultural layer), immediately on thehuman jaw and next to it were mammoth bones.’’

August 27th: ‘‘Close to the lower jaw from Aug. 24tha fragment of skull vault, the forehead and nape, 5 m distantfrom the edge. Above this a shoulderblade. Beneath this10 cm of loess, then a large hearth. Two meters from theedge at the most distant tip a human ulna, radius. This is inconjunction with the skull from Saturday. As deep as the sub-strate are older layers, in the same location are ribs as well.At the same place a mammoth skull and numerous skullfragments’’.

August 28th: ‘‘Where the human bones lay there was noskeleton; instead, to the earlier finds of radius, ulna, and ribswe may add one more humerus. This specimen laid in the up-per layer, oriented towards the east. The others lay to the left.The upper epiphysis of the humerus was missing. Milk canineof a bear, perforated’’.

Of importance here is the mention of human skull coveredby a scapula on August 27th, although it is unclear whether thescapula was from a human or mammoth.

The stone assemblage is not mentioned from this sector,while the bone assemlage yielded a spatula and two ‘‘cylin-ders’’ of mammoth ivory. The single bear canine (August28th) is, in this case, perforated. Dominant among the faunaare mammoth, reindeer, and hare, while fox also appears re-peatedly, and there are isolated instances of bear, lion, andwolverine. For mammoth, there are repeated mentions ofskulls, tusks, and molars; jaws, long bones, and a scapula ap-pear in isolated instances.

The southern band (August 29theSeptember 1st, 1894)

In late August, it remained to excavate the southern band,where Maska advanced from east to west. Further south itwas bounded by another field that stretched to the formercemetery wall, and within which the owner, Chrome�cek, wasunwilling to allow further excavation. The cultural layerwas again structured, as Maska (1894c: 56) documents bya sketch.

On August 30th, he records the find of a human rib, but thelanguage relating to the statement ‘‘15 m from the edge of theborders’’ (Maska, 1894c) is problematic; the word ‘‘border’’ isusually used by Maska for the neighboring plots, but if despitethis he meant the edge of the quarry (as was his habit), then thelocation would roughly match (Fig. 3).

South of the burial area and beyond, in the southern band,there are repeated mentions of the discovery of flakes andblades, and moreover four dentalia shells and an isolated ‘‘cyl-inder’’ of mammoth ivory. Among the fauna, mammoth, rein-deer, wolf, and hare predominate; there are repeated cases offox, lion, and wolverine, and sporadic finds of horse and rhi-noceros. In this case, mammoth is represented mainly byskulls and molars, less so by scapulae, long bones, and a tusk.


The southwest (September 3rde6th, 1894)

Finally, a square of 10� 10 m at the southwestern edge ofthe plot remained to be investigated. From here, Maska men-tions an even more extensive area of ash, but otherwise thecultural layer disappears. The doubling of layers was still vis-ible in places, as he assigns the find of a leafpoint to the upperlayer. This relates also to the leafpoint found on August 22ndof the same year in the ‘‘northwest’’ areadboth, thus, comefrom the western part of the area and from the upper layer,as Maska explicitly notes. In addition, he recalls several otherfinds such as the 8e9 cm long leafpoints found in 1893, al-ways in the upper layer (Maska, 1894b: 5), but he neglectsa single find of a leafpoint from the lower layer, found onJuly 25th, 1894.

By the end, Maska (1894c: 64) sketched in his diary anarched, unexcavated half of this sector, only noting that itcomprises altogether 50 m2. This relict of the original sedi-ments was not touched by Krı�z in 1895, who on his map(1903: 50) marks it with a white triangle dalthough other-wise, as Maska (1896) complains, Krı�z worked on the areascleaned and prepared by Maska. It is, therefore, possible thatAbsolon, as late as 1928, reached undisturbed sediments atthis location, and it was most likely from here that he obtainedhis human skeletal fragments.

Concerning artifacts, there are repeated mentions only oflithics (including the above-mentioned leafpoint) and a ‘‘cylin-der’’ of mammoth ivory. Of the fauna, only mammoth appearsrepeatedly, with rather sporadic reindeer, horse, aurochs, fox,wolf, lion, wolverine, and rhinoceros. Mammoth is repre-sented mainly by molars and vertebrae and a single scapula.

Martin Krı�z (1895)

Krı�z excavated both in the western and northern parts of thesite. Maska’s excavations of 1894 essentially formed a spatiallinkage between these two parts, so that Krı�z’s general plancan also be used to correct the outlines of Maska’s sketches.While the arrival of Krı�z at the site posed an ethical problemof its own (Maska, 1895a, 1896; Krı�z, 1896a,b,c), it must berecognized that these excavations utilized a better (i.e., rectan-gular) system (Krı�z, 1903). Fortunately, in the case of allhuman skeletal remains Krı�z gives its provenience accordingto his ‘‘pits’’, or ‘‘Gruben’’. In the western part of the site,Krı�z mentions a skull (trench VIII), lower jaw 1 (trench IV),lower jaw 2 (trench VIII, unclear whether this belongs to theskull from the same trench), and left and right femur (trenchII). In the northern part of the site, there were 18 cranialfragments (trench VII), right and left humeri (trench VII),two ulnae (trench VII), and fragment of a right radius (trenchVII). These finds were later ascribed the nos. 22e26 by Mat-iegka, although the description does not match precisely andno. 26 is clearly a later addition.

With the human fossil finds, Krı�z’s record on provenienceends. Following his reports (Krı�z, 1894, 1896a,b, 1903), theexcavated settlement zone was clearly structured, with centralhearths located in shallow pits and concentrations of

fragmented animal bones around them. However, we do notknow whether this patterning refers to the western or (rather)northern part of the site, or both. In addition, Krı�z’s excava-tions yielded the most famous art objects, such as the engrav-ing of a woman and the sculpture of a mammoth, but thesewent unrecognized by their discoverer (it was Maska who lateroriented them correctly and recognized their meaning), andtheir localization at the site was never given.

Karel Absolon (1928)

During the early 20th century, the area of Site I was en-croached upon by industrial loess exploitation of the expand-ing brickworks belonging to F. Prikryl from the west.Following episodic activities of J. Liska, J. Knies, and otherinvestigators, the quarrying was monitored more systemati-cally by K. Absolon and colleagues from 1924 onwards. In1928, Absolon undertook a series of trenches in the western-most part of the site, along the edge of the plot, and adjacentto the areas investigated by Maska and Krı�z (Absolon andKlıma, 1977, their Figs. 36e37). Between the older excava-tions he found a roughly 10 m long, irregular, intact zone;judging from a drawing made by J. Mrazek on September15th, 1928, it possible that this area included the unfinished‘‘southwest’’ sector of Maska from September, 1894.

An incomplete human skeleton was found (Absolon, 1929;no. 27 according to Matiegka), but the skull was either missingor disintegrated when removed by its finder, L. Novak. Abso-lon lists 54 bones from both upper and lower limbs, includingseveral phalanges, as well as two teeth. An important observa-tion is that a fragment of left femur is incised by 26 obliquecutmarks, evidently by a sharp object, which Absolon (1929)explains as an effect of cannibalism, while Oliva (2001b:19) feels it was from recent damage during the excavation.However, the pattern is very similar to numerous cutmarksidentified on mammal bones during our recent excavations atthis site (Svoboda et al., in press).

In 1930, L. Novak found another lower jaw at the sameplace, but it is not known whether it comes from the same in-dividual. It is possible that it was the specimen designated no.26 and is still curated in the Moravian Museum (Skutil, 1940;Vl�cek, 2005).

Evidence from the recent excavation (2006)

Between 1943e1992, excavations in the remaining partsof the site by Schwabedissen, Zebera, Klıma, and Svoboda(Table 1) clarified the overall picture of spatial extensionand stratigraphy of Predmostı, but no more human fossilswere discovered.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, a project to builda museum pavilion that would cover and protect the last re-mains of the cultural layer, bones of mammoths, and otherlarge animals at the Site Ib (about 8 m� 3e4.5 m), has beenproposed by the City of Prerov. The preparation had severalstages. In 2002, we made test trenches in order to check thereal extension and depth of the cultural layer. In spring

Fig. 11. Predmostı I, 2006 excavations. Photo of southern sector, showing

deposition of large and complete bones, predominately of mammoth.


2006, we followed with two archaeological trenches in placesof future sidewalls of the pavilion. Finally, in summer 2006,after roughly finishing the building, it was possible to conductthe archaeological recovery which conserved in place theGravettian cultural layers and opened them to the public.Besides archaeologists and students from the Czech Republic,the excavation was joined by a team from the University ofCambridge, UK, who focused on plant remains and othermicrofossils in order to reconstruct environment and seasonal-ity of the site. This part of the project is still in progress, butpreliminary results relevant to spatial structure, stratigraphy,and chronology of the site can already be summarized(Svoboda et al., in press).

In terms of stratigraphy, Holocene deposits are underlain byyellow-brownish loess with inclusions of niveoeolian sedi-ments, forming the main thickness of the section (1.80e2 m). The loess is horizontally penetrated by thin, darkishand rusty horizons, and vertically by lime-filled fissures anda typical ice-wedge cast of epigenetic type. Following J. De-mek (in Svoboda et al., in press), such structures are typicalof permafrost and mean annual air temperature (MAAT)around �5 �C, during OIS 2. At the base of the loess is brownto brown-grayish clay with an undulated margin and evidenceof cryotectonics, indicating a moister, but generally still coldenvironment.

The Gravettian cultural complex is located in the subsoil,with total thickness of 0.6e0.8 m, formed during the laterpart of OIS 3. Bones, artifacts, and other recorded objectsfollow a shallow slope, in minimally two layers (Fig. 10).Whereas the upper layer was represented by individual bonesand artifacts, the lower layer was a continuous coverage ofobjects, mainly the large and heavy bones. Therefore, thelower layer was excavated, preserved, and conserved in place.The first uncalibrated 14C dating on bones from both layersprovided results of 24,340� 120 BP for the upper layer and26,780� 140 BP for the lower layer, the lower of whichcorresponds with dates previously obtained from the samesite (Table 3). Large mammoth bones were accumulated inthe lower layer, especially in the southern sector (Fig. 11),accompanied by skeletons and partial skeletons of middle-sized and small-sized animals, and small bone fragments,partly burnt (Fig. 12). At several places, longitudinal zonesfilled with small bone fragments, also partly burnt and mixedwith fragments of red ochre, may be interpreted as fillings ofshallow erosional canals following the slope.

Fig. 10. Predmostı Ib, 2006 excavations. Vertical distribution of bones and

artifacts showing separation in the two Gravettian horizons and indicating their

radiocarbon dating.

The lower case of the excavation (only in the side trenches)formed the reddish paleosol of OIS 5, as recorded elsewhere inthe Predmostı area (with OIS 4 not being represented in thedeposits of this area).

In the upper Gravettian layer, the malacofauna indicatescold-adapted loess species Succinella oblonga Drap, or sub-species S. o. elongata SNDB (Kovanda in Svoboda et al., inpress). Among the vertebrates, the most numerous bones aremammoth (77%) and horse (15 %), followed by wolf (5%)and reindeer (3%), each from minimally one individual. Thefaunal composition becomes more versatile in the lower layer,dominated by mammoth (50%), unidentified middle-sizedmammal (23%), horse (8 %), wolf (7%), unidentified mam-mals of various size (3%), reindeer (2%), hare (2%), fox(1%), lion, aurochs, and birds (0.1%). Based on the seasonsof deaths of a young wolf and of a horse fetus and on the anal-ysis of dental thin sections from the same context, there was

Fig. 12. Predmostı I, 2006 excavations. Photo of the northern sector, show-

ingdbesides the complete bonesdlongitudinal zones composed of small,

burnt bone fragments.


likely a year-round occupation of this part of the site (Nyvl-tova Fisakova in Svoboda et al., in press).

Whereas the upper Gravettian layer yielded only six bladesand flakes of flint, the majority of the archaeological materialwas recorded in the lower layer, which represents an EvolvedPavlovian assemblage. Compared to the previously publishedartifacts from Predmostı, the character of the newly recoveredindustry is more microlithic, probably as a result of systematicfloating of the sediments. A portion of the microbladesare backed and some are marginally retouched, or both,and typical crescent-shaped microliths occured as well. The‘‘normal-sized’’ industry is represented by burins and blades.Two small, subrectangular rib fragments, measuring16� 10� 2 mm3 and 11� 10� 2 mm3 in size, are decoratedby finely engraved ridge patterns, imitating perphaps the plain-weave structures as recorded from other Moravian sites.

The 2006 evidence is useful as a base for comparison withthe results obtained previously by Wankel, Maska, and Krı�z.We confirmed the division of the cultural stratigraphic com-plex in two or more sublayers, and the relative richness ofthe lower layer compared to upper layer (both in bones and ar-tifacts). The stratigraphy (Fig. 10) and the 14C dating currentlyavailable (Table 3) support our earlier attribution of the upperlayer to the Willendorf-Kostenkian and the lower layer tothe Evolved Pavlovian stages of the Gravettian complex(Svoboda, 2001a, 2003). All this indicates a long-term Gravet-tian occupation at Predmostı.

The general character of the lower layer, the unsorted accu-mulations of large bones, evidence of their intensive burningand fragmentation, and rather sporadic occurence of lithicartifacts correspond with the adjacent, earlier excavated areaswest of Skalka (including the burial area excavated in 1894).This is in contrast to areas previously excavated further tothe north of Skalka, with typical hearths associated with richand variable artifact and bone concentrations (i.e., settlementunits), and by mammoth bones sorted by type.

The burial area: accompanying artifacts and finds

The accompanying finds are characterized only in summaryfashion in the original publications, and only selected piecesreceived special mention. Wankel’s and Absolon’s reportslack any kind of localization, and we can only speculate asto the space in which the researchers moved, whereas forMaska’s excavations it is possible to get at least a rough local-ization for many finds from the diary records. The first prob-lem with Maska is his excavation strategy, as discussedabove, and the second is the subjective selection of objectsfor recording, influenced not only by the real value of theitems as such, but also by how rich their finds context wason a particular day. The excavations conducted by Krı�z weredivided into regular, numbered trenches, but the proveniencedata that exist for the paleoanthropological finds (Krı�z,1903) are missing for the artifacts.

In terms of the accompanying fauna, Maska (1894c) esti-mates the total number of molars found at ‘‘more than2,000; tusks, while, cut and split, several hundred; other bones,

thousands’’. To this it can be added that preservation of mam-moth bones was generally poor at sites of this kind, which wasundoubtedly reflected in the documentation and equally in thequantification of their occurrence. Another problem is thecharacter of Maska’s records. Whenever a bone type is givenwithout mentioning the species, it usually refers to mammoth;however, in certain contexts he may have had human bones inmind. Musil (1994, 2004) has provided a supplementary andoverall assessment of the faunal representation at Predmostıthat underscores the great preponderance of mammoth, andwhich essentially defies quantification. Of the other species,the most numerous are wolf (ca. 43%) and fox (24%), fol-lowed by hare (10%), reindeer (9%), and wolverine (6%).Horse, aurochs or bison, moose, bear, lion, and rhinocerosappear rather sporadically; the presence of birds is not quanti-fied. All of this is consistent with the results of the 2006excavations.

Maska estimates the total number of artifacts at 20,000, Ab-solon at 30,000, and, under his influence, Breuil (1925) at40,000. However, this is still a low number given the quantitiesof artifacts at the South Moravian settlements, where the findlayers were for the most part subject to screening. It is inter-esting (again, in contrast to South Moravia) that, accordingto Maska’s records, the stone industry often occured in spa-tially defined scatters, and was scarce or absent elsewhere.

Several terminological differences arise from differences incommon usage at the time of discovery. In terms of thechipped stone industry, ‘‘knife’’ (Messer) and ‘‘small knife’’(Messerchen) may be interpreted as blade and bladelet, respec-tively, whereas ‘‘pieces or fragments’’ are clearly what wewould presently refer to as flakes; the ‘‘Solutrean type’’ isevidently the leafpoint. In terms of Gravettian chronology(Svoboda, 2003), fine leafpoints, together with shoulderedpoints, are indicative of the Upper Gravettian (Willendorf-Kostenkian). This corresponds with Maska’s observations oftheir occurence in the upper layer. None of them, however,was related to the human fossils.

‘‘Diggers’’ or ‘‘trowels’’ are interpreted as spatulas, whichin the first case is supported by a diary sketch as well. Thecommon term ‘‘cylinder’’ or ‘‘small cylinder’’ of mammothivory can evidently have a variety of meanings. The largepieces may be either grinders made of tusks (Valoch, 1982)or retouchers (Steguweit, 2005), while smaller pieces maybe segments of the typical Gravettian points (projectiles), dec-orative items, and, in several cases, as was the case for Wan-kel’s find of a tusk with an eye and blow marks in the middlesection, ‘‘weights’’ (Svoboda, 2001b).

Publication of important artifacts from the earlier excava-tions at Predmostı was undertaken by Absolon and Klıma(1977) and K. Valoch (1960, 1975, 1981, 1982). Nevertheless,only two of the artifacts from 1894 that are explicitly de-scribed by Maska are identifiable in the current collectionsof the Moravian Museum: a marlstone disc, now restored(Maska, 1894c, August 3rd; Figs. 13 and 14) and a mammothivory fork (Maska, 1894c, August 20th); it is also from herethat one of polished sandstone pebbles published by Valochcomes (‘‘polished slate chisel’’; Maska, 1894c, August 1st).

Fig. 13. Sketch documenting Maska’s find of the marlstone disc in the vicinity of the burial. Archive of the Institute of Archaeology, AS CR, Brno.


Otherwise, the 1894 excavations are remarkably poor in spe-cial, decorated, or artistic items, and almost no decorated arti-facts from Valoch’s (1975) list can be localized here with anydegree of certainty.

The generally lower density of archaeological finds indi-cates that the northern part of the site, where the excavationwas initiated by Wankel, was richer in artifacts and betterstructured in terms of hearths and the sorting of mammothbones by type, whereas the western part, including the 1894area, looks rather peripheral or task-specific. Undoubtedly fireswere burned there, mammoth bones were stacked in distinct

Fig. 14. Pavlov I. Marlstone disc, comparable to the find made by Maska in the

vicinity of the burial (cf. Fig. 13). Photo by Martin Frouz.

accumulations, and even artifacts were deposited. A contigu-ous mammoth midden did not appear, however, as at DolnıVestonice or Milovice, for example. Clearly, the burial areais the most important feature in the western part of the site.

The absence of pigments or pigmented materials around theburial area is striking; Maska would certainly have recordedthem. Pigments or dyes are a common indicator of Upper Pa-leolithic graves in general, and since the 19th century scholarshave paid special attention to them. At the South Moraviansettlements there is not only a red ochre coverage over theskulls and other parts of the buried bodies, but also grindingpalettes and pebbles covered in pigment (Svoboda, 1997) .Some of these were even found near the burials (e.g., DolnıVestonice 16). Dyes were recorded elsewhere at Predmostı, in-cluding the area of our 2006 excavations.

The absence of grave gifts is another striking feature of theburial area and its vicinity. Of course, even for apparentlyricher Paleolithic burials found at settlements, the questionarises as to what extent the artifacts and animal bones foundin the vicinity of bodies can be interpreted as deliberatelyselected and deposited burial items. In Southern Moravia,the most common type of artifact in burial contexts are drilledcarnivore teeth (fox, wolf), mollusk shales from Tertiary de-posits, and simple shaped pendants carved of ivory (Trinkausand Svoboda, 2006). Specifically, the first and preliminaryzooarchaeological analysis of the faunal remains in the vicin-ity of Dolnı Vestonice 16 suggests that complete animal bodieswere laid next to the buried man, and perhaps intentionally(Nyvltova Fisakova, pers. comm.). Across Europe, however,


it is the case that the richest Gravettian burials are also theyoungest (e.g., the ‘prince’ from Arene Candide and other Ital-ian sites, the two burials from Sungir in Russia, and the maleburial of of Brno 2 in Moravia; Pettitt et al., 2003). In terms ofchronology, these ‘‘rich’’ cases (all dated to 23e24 ky BP) allbelong to the later Gravettian stage compared to Predmostı,Dolnı Vestonice, or Pavlov. This suggests, therefore, that therichness of the Gravettia burials may also be the result of tem-poral variation in mortuary ritual.

A possible exception is the remarkable polished and perfo-rated disc of marlstone, 18e19 cm in diameter, found in thevicinity of the Predmostı burial area (Fig. 13; on this and sim-ilar discs cf. Valoch, 1960; Svoboda, ed., 2005b: 151e165).Several Gravettian sites in Moravia provided these typical ar-tifacts (Fig. 14) and, in two cases (Predmostı and Brno 2), theywere associated with human burials. They do not appear to berelated to a utilitarian function. In the Siberian ethnological re-cord, shamans are equiped with similar discs, made of metal inthis case, and symbolize the ascent to the underground world(Anisimov, 1958). In early China, from the Chou period on-wards, discs of the same shape and size, but made of jade,were called ‘‘pi’’ and symbolized the circular sky, while thecentral hole represented the ‘‘lie-chhiu’’ through which thelightning flashes (Christie, 1968: 56). If these objects symbol-ized ‘‘gates’’ to the other worlds during the Upper Paleolithicas well as in later times, then the association with Paleolithicburials such as Predmostı was certainly of significance.

Taphonomic issues

From the moment of discovery of the burial area atPredmostı, two competing hypotheses were raised: a contem-porary burial as a consequence of a catastrophic eventdproposed already by Maska (1895a,b) and lastly by Zilhaoand Trinkaus (2002)dversus gradual accumulation of humanbodies at one place (lastly Svoboda, 2005a). Whereas the firsthypothesis is supported by the demographic structure of theburied group, including adults and children, the second inter-pretation results from contextual and taphonomic analysis ofthe burial area itself.

One of the basic archaeological assumptions is that a skele-ton preserved in a completely or partially anatomical positionwas deposited in that way deliberately. Thus, the burial resultsfrom a ritual and symbolic act, underscored by some theory oflife and death. Nevertheless, even such an apparently straight-forward thesis has in the recent past been subject to criticismand revision from a taphonomic perspective (Gargett, 1989;Riel-Salvatore and Clark, 2001).

The disturbance of human bodies has sometimes been ex-plained as an effect of deliberate, symbolic, or ritual behavior,as richly illustrated by ethnology: cannibalism, secondaryburial, deliberate exposure of human remains to natural forces(for Predmostı, cf. Absolon, 1929; Ullrich, 1982, 1986, 1996;Oliva, 2001a,b). However, this interpretation should be pre-ceded by a taphonomic analysis of a variety of postdeposi-tional processes that might have operated at a particular site.

Often a far simpler and, on closer examination, a more likelysolution is brought to light.

Based on Maska’s preliminary counts of bones ordered ac-cording to the individuals, the skeletons were originally morecomplete than is usually quoted in later literature. The mostcomplete skeleton, preserved in more or less anatomical posi-tion, was the male no. 3, as sketched by the excavator on hisoriginal Fig. 5. In the later description and analysis by Mat-iegka (1934, 1938) are missing the ribs that were depictedon the original Maska’s sketch. Some of the other smallerbones probably got lost. Thus, the reconstruction presentedlater by Absolon for museological purposes was probablycompleted artificially, perhaps adding skeletal elements of var-ious origins (Fig. 6). In another case, the female skeleton no. 4was also later reconstructed by Absolon into a complete body.Some of the later excavated skeletons, although relativelycomplete as well, were found in highly disturbed positions(Fig. 7).

In some studies concerning Predmostı (Absolon, 1929; Ull-rich, 1982, 1986, 1996), cannibalism became an alternative ex-planation for the incomplete or disturbed skeletons regardlessof whether this incompleteness resulted from natural postde-positional processes or from deliberate human manipulation.Cannibalism is undeniably part of human behavior, generallynonstandard, and generally widespread in only a few cultures(Ullrich, 1982, 1986). The most common meaning of this termlies, however, in consumption of human meat, and this is notconvincingly demonstrated by either fragmentation patterns ordeliberate manipulation, if these are demonstrable on humanbones.

If we consider the mean annual air temperatures and the ev-idence of permafrost in glacial conditions, burials into frozenground are difficult. In high latitudes, burials on elevatedgrounds are a widely used custom (Alekseev, 1980). Anothertype of behavior is represented by ritual secondary burials,whereby bones are carefully selected, sorted or complementedinto a particular pattern, with symbolic meaning according toa tradition. If the second model is to be applied at Predmostı,as done by H. Ullrich (1996) and especially by M. Oliva(2001a,b), statistically convincing evidence of the deliberateselection of certain (‘‘representative’’) bones should be pro-vided first. This, however, is not the case (Svoboda, 2001c).Particular human interventions are apparent on some humanbones only, always found isolated and outside the burialarea: the perforation of a pelvis bone found south of the grave,and the oblique cutmarks on the humerus found by Absolon(1929); surprisingly, the authenticity of these cutmarks hasbeen rejected by Oliva himself (2001b).

Characteristic Upper Paleolithic graves, set in and protectedby relatively deep grave pits covered by bones, have been de-scribed from Russia (Kostenki on the Don river; Sinitsyn,2004), in a region where deeper pits in general (storage, settle-ment pits) were a common phenomenon. In contrast, at theMoravian sites pits of any kind are rare and shallow, andgraves themselves were laid virtually on the surface or inonly shallow depressions, but most of them are preserved in-tact and in anatomical position (Trinkaus and Svoboda,


2006). At Dolnı Vestonice, it is even possible to see the rootmarks on human bones. The most likely explanation of suchshallow depositions in Moravia is offered by the generallygreater extent of permafrost in Central Europe. Under suchconditions, an effective protection was usually provided bymammoth shoulderblades, as shown by the burials of DolnıVestonice 3 and 4 (?), and Pavlov 1, and possibly in certainmarginal cases at Predmostı. Whenever the mammoth scapu-lae are missing, as in case of the well-preserved triple burialDolnı Vestonice 13e15 and the burial Dolnı Vestonice 16,some sort of wooden structure over the bodies is indicated.Such a reconstruction is in the first case attested by the numer-ous pieces of charred roundwood around the triple burial, andin the second by the plan of a circular settlement unit in thearea, interpreted as a dwelling.

The influence of geological processes on Pleistocene burialsituations must be evaluated separately for each sitednot justfrom the geographic and geomorphological context, but alsofrom the associated planigraphy and stratigraphy, with respectto the patterns of deformation observed on other regular ar-chaeological features such as hearths and pits. As an example,the sites in the Dolnı Vestonice-Pavlov area, located on theslopes of Pavlov Hills in much steeper position than at Pre-dmostı, provide evidence of shifting whole sediment blocks,layers, artifact groups, and separate artifacts. In addition, itis possible to observe the effects of frost phenomena such assolifluction, cryoturbation, frost wedges, and the subsequentdeformation of the originally regular pits and hearths (or theirsubsequent covering by a fine microlayer of loess down slope).Nevertheless, the anatomical position of the majority of theburied human bodies at the Dolnı Vestonice-Pavlov sitesshows little disturbance. With the exception of the Pavlov 1burial, the deformation is not fundamental, and shifts wereon the level of centimeters to tens of centimeters along theslope (compare, for example, the slope movement of the lowerpart of the legs of DV 14 at the knees). At Pavlov, after a latererosion of this part of the site, the male skeleton occured ona slight slope, and the parts of the body protected by a largemammoth scapula moved more or less as a whole. Unpro-tected parts, such as the skull, moved independently of thecovered remains. However, scatters of individual fragmentsof human bones and teeth, found through the cultural layer,are common both at Dolnı Vestonice and Predmostı (Trinkauset al., 2000).

The burial area at Predmostı was located only a few metersfrom a large limestone rock, Skalka. Maska’s records reveal anincreased thickness of the find horizon between the burial andSkalka, comprising loess, humic, and ashy zones, and layers oflimestone debris (Fig. 9). This situation probably resulted fromslope movements and sediment accumulation that can logi-cally be expected at the foot of a large rock formation. Conse-quently, the influx of slope sediments into the burial area hasthe effect of protecting the bodies under the mass of debris,and, at the same time, causing some redeposition and distur-bance of these same remains. These movements may alsohave caused the vertical positioning of certain mammothbones in the vicinity of the burial area, such as the scapulae,

a tibia, and a femur, and perhaps two mammoth mandibles fur-ther to the east mentioned by Maska.

Pressure from the overlying sediments may also have influ-enced the positioning and preservation of remains. At DolnıVestonice and Pavlov, the weight of the loess deposited rapidlyafter abandonment of the site evidently compressed the skele-tons into extreme positions (Dolnı Vestonice 3), and causedsome skull fracturesdwhich were then somewhat romanti-cally explained as fatal wounds by heavy objects (Dolnı Ves-tonice 14). At Predmostı, the influx of slope sediments couldhave had similar effects. The fact that ‘‘no skull was foundwhole, all had fallen apart (along the sutures)’’, as noted byMaska (1895a,b) can be explained by the pressure of the over-lying sediments.

Wherever the bodies were still accessible to predators androdents, their activity should be presumed. Gravettian sitesin Moravia provided evidence of fox (common and arctic),wolf, hyena, wolverine, lion, and bear. Foxes are capable ofdigging up, breaking open, and discarding bones, but have dif-ficulty breaking the bones of medium-sized animals, includinglarger human bones. Wolves may dig carrion out of the snow,but there is little evidence to suggest that they would dig bod-ies out of the ground; they are, however, capable of breakinghuman bones into spiral fractures, and damaging epiphyses.Hyenas could dig out, gnaw on, damage, and discard bones,and it has been demonstrated that they disturb shallow humangraves; they break long bones and split them with even moreease than wolves. Bears dig up carrion, gnaw it, and eat it, andcan also break human bones. Equally, wolverines gnaw andbreak up bones (Binford, 1981; Haynes, 1983; Haglundet al., 1988; Horowitz and Smith, 1988; Mondini, 1995; Trin-kaus et al., 2000).

On the bones themselves, howeverdaccording to the pho-tographic documentationdno demonstrable traces of gnawingare to be found, despite Maska’s claims, in particular with re-gard to bones found outside the burial area. From his notes itfollows that it was rather the fragmentation (e.g., the breakageof epiphyses) of the remains that he interpreted as evidence ofcarnivore activity, rather than the typical gnawing marks thatwe would identify today. However, predators could of coursehave dragged skeletons in such a way as not to leave visibletraces on the bones.

In 1996, together with a team of the Autonomous Univer-sity of Barcelona, I had the opportunity to follow the actionsof foxes on a forested hillside in Tierra del Fuego, wherea herd of guanacos had died over the past winter. The foxesdenned adjacent to each corpse (or group of corpses), consum-ing them over a period of the one month that we observedthem, so that the position of the bodies changed slightlyeach day. This kind of a den would roughly match the accumu-lation of fox bones that Maska identified on August 7th at thesouthern edge of the area, and elsewhere at Predmostı.

Finally, one should consider the effect of postdepositionalhuman activity. The bodies, buried in shallow graves, mayhave been exposed to all kinds of human activities, especiallyin the case that the burial place had been forgotten or lost itssignificance. If the burial area was memorized and reused


during a longer timespan, then the deposition of additionalbodies would disturb the position of the earlier ones (cf.Pequart and Pequart, 1954). For Predmostı, such a model issupported by the fact that the most complete skeletons (maleno. 3, female no. 4) were found on the first excavation days,evidently in the upper layers, whereas the most disturbed skel-etons were documented a month later at the base (cf. Figs. 5and 7).

Reading Predmostı: a contextual approach

In recent years, the rapid development of settlement of ar-chaeology and the spatial approach to sites and landscapes(e.g., Vasilev et al., 2003) has influenced how we interpretthe location of settlements and associated human burials.From this perspective, a burial may be explained as a kindof declaration of rights to a territory that has been confirmedby deposition of the remains of ancestors at important loca-tions. Theoretically, such significance may be applied to cer-tain Gravettian burials deposited at strategically importantpoints of passage, such as at Grimaldi, Krems, Dolnı Vesto-nice-Pavlov, and, last but not least, Predmostı (Fig. 1).

Focusing on the within-site structure of the large Gravettiansettlements, the problem of center and periphery, and of thetask-specific structuring of the sites are crucial topics (e.g.,Svoboda, 2005b). From this perspective, and contrary toclaims in earlier works on Predmostı (e.g., Matiegka, 1934:9), the burial area west of the Skalka cliff does not correspondto ‘‘the center of the settlement of prehistoric man’’. A ratherperipheral or task-specific role of this area is reflected in therelative dearth of chipped industry, both within and aroundthe burial area. The records left by both Wankel and Maskasuggest that the real settlement center was localized more tothe north of Skalka.

In terms of stratigraphy and chronology of the Gravettian,the position of the burial area corresponds predominantly tothe lower archaeological layer (Evolved Pavlovian, with unca-libated dates between 25e27 ky BP; Svoboda, 2003; Joris andWeninger, 2004), described also as the ‘‘main’’ layer byMaska (‘‘human bones. are also found within the culturallayer, which appear to show the temporal identity of manwith the cultural layer, and not perhaps that he lived here be-fore the formation of this cultural layer’’; Maska, 1894c, Aug.11th), but there are mentions of human bones found above andbelow it. This relates to the northern and eastern parts of theburial area where the layer with anthropological finds was sep-arated from the above stratigraphy by limestone scree. Thefirst explanation suggested by Maska would assume deliberate(i.e., anthropogenic) burial of human bones from above, laterpartially filled by redeposited loess and ultimately coveredby the limestone scree. Another explanation, considered byMaska in his later publication (1985b: 163), is that the mate-rial deposited in the subsoil corresponds chronologically tothe time of sedimentation, and is, therefore, earlier (‘‘even ear-lier than the cultural layer itself began to be deposited at theplace, that is, perhaps at the beginning of the settlement ofthe campsite at Predmostı’’). The contradiction to his note of

August 11th, (Maska, 1894c), as cited above, is explicablethrough the stratigraphic complexity that Maska was facedwith during his fieldwork, making a single and straightforwardanswer more difficult.

Following the findings of Maska, the bodies buried at Pre-dmostı were generally oriented to the north, (i.e., parallel tothe rock wall). In this there is a difference from Dolnı Vesto-nice, where heads were usually oriented against the slope. Al-though the human remains found in the burial area and vicinityare disturbed, or are treated as such by Matiegka (1934, 1938)and all derived literature, the Maska’s original tables show thata number of them (Predmostı 1e10, 15) were relatively com-plete at the time of discovery, and some of them in near ana-tomical position (Predmostı 3). No demonstrable evidence ofselection of particular bones that would indicate secondaryburials or other type of ritual is apparent. Rather, a complexof taphonomic issues seems to be responsible for the postdepo-sitional disturbance of a part of the bodies. These processes in-clude geological processes, predator activity, and subsequenthuman activity at the site.

At a site located in the direct vicinity of the large limestonerock of Skalka, one should expect formation of footslope de-posits such as limestone debris and redeposited soil. This ex-pectation is confirmed by the original observations of Maska.The complex stratigraphy he described within the burial areacontinued towards the Skalka hillside, and became evenmore complex and thicker in this direction. These movementswould cause redeposition and disturbance of some of the bod-ies, as well as reburial and better protection of others.

Predator activities, to which attention has been drawn by allresearchers starting with Maska, and continuing with Matiegkaand Klıma, are indicated by the large number of fox and wolfremains (including almost complete skeletons) within andaround the burial area. The influence of predators (and ro-dents) as a natural part of the Pleistocene biocenosis and land-scape must, therefore, be acknowledged, even if it is notdirectly demonstrable by evidence of tooth marks on thebones.

Besides redeposition of the sediments and predator activi-ties, humans were also potentionally responsible for distur-bance of the burial area. If we reject the hypothesis ofcontemporary burial and postulate a gradual accumulation ofbodies, then each newly added body will deform the situationof those deposited earlier. As an example, the best preservedskeleton, Predmostı 3, probably lay in an upper layer in thecentral part of the burial area, while the skeletons located be-low it and, thus, excavated later are evidently more disturbed.

The burial area is minimally laden with artifacts, and theotherwise usual pigment coverage is also absent. The data re-peated in popular and secondary literature mentioning items ofdecoration in the context of a child skeleton are supplementaryand erroneous. However, the oft-cited association of a foxskull that lay across a human skeleton is authentic (i.e., Mas-ka’s) but given the frequency of fox remains over the wholearea it loses any kind of exceptionality. The only conspicuousartifact found in close proximity to the burial area is part ofa marlstone disc (the other half of which was found some


distance away, Fig. 13); this might have had substantial sym-bolic significance, stemming from the funerary context of thislocation, and supported by more recent North Asian analogies.

Mammoth scapulae (one of which had irregular engraving)evidently covered three or more skeletons at the margins of theburial area, but provided no contiguous cover of the wholespace. In addition, two mammoth scapulae probably coveredindividual human remains south of the burial area, and perhapsin one instance southeast of the burial area. Deposition of thelimestone debris is a natural phenomenon at the foot of a rock,although of course stones were available at the location andcould have been used deliberately as coverage of the bodies.

In contrast to Dolnı Vestonice-Pavlov in South Moravia andthe other, better preserved and more complex Gravettianburials of Eurasia, the Predmostı burial situation results fromcombination of both ritual and natural processes. However, ex-posure of the dead to natural processes may be a kind of ritualbehavior of its own, based on concepts about life and death ofthat time. A hypothesis may be set forth that the determiningfactor for the selection of the burial area at Predmostı was theremarkable Skalka rock itself, a cliff that rose directly aboveit. None of the archaeologists saw the rock firsthand, so onecannot speculate whether location of the burial area reflectedany particular rock formation. However a long-term tendencyto take the dead outside the actual settlement center, (i.e., ‘‘be-low the rock’’) may have given rise to the accumulation of hu-man remains at a single place, with a scatter of dispersedfragments in the vicinity. At this place, bodies were more orless deliberately left to the action of redeposition, predatorsand additional human activities, including deposition of addi-tional bodies.

Acknowledgements

This paper was prepared as a part of Czech Grant Agencyproject 206/04/1498 on Predmostı, which is conducted in col-laboration with the Department of Anthropology, Charles Uni-versity, Prague. The last fieldwork at Predmostı in 2006 waspart of a Czech-British project on Gravettian environmentand seasonality, conducted jointly with the University of Cam-bridge; I thank Martin Jones and all British and Czech col-leagues for their collaboration. Last but not least, I thank thereviewers and Susan Anton for their comments on this paperand for editorial help.

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Documents

The Upper Paleolithic burial area at Predmostı: ritual and taphonomy