Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T14:01:42.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New finds of Upper Palaeolithic decorative objects from Předmostí, Czech Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Rebecca Farbstein  and
Jiříp Svoboda
Rebecca Farbstein
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK
Jiříp Svoboda
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Paleolithic and Paleoethnology Research Center, 69129 Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two new examples of decorative art have turned up at the Gravettian site of Předmostí, dating to the twenty-sixth to twenty-fifth millennium BP: rectilinear grid patterns are executed on one side of flat bones, probably of reindeer. The authors speculate that the two pieces may have come from a single larger decorated object. The grids themselves join a growing repertoire of patterns known from Upper Palaeolithic society, but their role remains enigmatic: counting, calendars or ornament? Art or science?

Keywords

Upper PalaeolithicGravettianCzech Republicmammothreindeerdecorative artartgrid pattern
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 314 , 1 December 2007 , pp. 856 - 864
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Absolon, K. & Klíma, B.. 1977. Předmostí. Ein Mammutjägerplatz in Mähren. Praha: Academia.Google Scholar
Adovasio, J., Soffer, O. & Klíma, B.. 1996. Upper Palaeolithic fibre technology: interlaced woven finds from Pavlov I, Czech Republic, c. 26 000 years ago. Antiquity 70: 526–34.Google Scholar
Brühl, E. 2005. The bone, antler, and ivory tools, in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I Southeast: A window into the Gravettian lifestyles: 252–93. Brno: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals.Google Scholar
d'Errico, F., Henshilwood, C. & Nillsen, P.. 2001. An engraved bone fragment from c . 70 000-year-old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origin of symbolism and language. Antiquity 75: 309–18.Google Scholar
Fladerer, F. A. 2001. The Krems-Wachtberg camp-site: mammoth carcass utilization along the Danube 27,000 years ago, in Cavarretta, G. et al. (ed.) The World of Elephants: 432–8. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.Google Scholar
García Diez, M. 2005. Decorative patterns on the organic bones, in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I Southeast: A window into the Gravettian lifestyles: 309–73. Brno: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals.Google Scholar
Klíma, B. 1997. Die Knochenindustrie, Zier- und Kunstgegenstände (Bone industry, decorative objects and art), in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I Northwest: the Upper Paleolithic burial and settlement context: 227–86. Brno: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.Google Scholar
Marshack, A. 1972. The roots of civilization: the cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol and notation. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Marshack, A. 1982. Non-utilitarian fragment of bone from the Middle Palaeolithic layer, in Kozlowski, J. K. (ed.) Excavation in the Bacho Kiro Cave: 117. Warszawa: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.Google Scholar
Marshack, A. 1991. The Tai plaque and calendrical notation in the Upper Palaeolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1(1): 25–61.Google Scholar
Mason, S. L., Hather, J. G. & Hillman, G. C.. 1994. Preliminary investigation of the plant macro-remains from Dolní Věštonice II, and its implications for the role of plant foods in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe. Antiquity 68: 48–57.Google Scholar
Musil, R. 2003. The Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Game Suite in Central and Southeastern Europe, in van Andel, T.H. & Davies, W. D. (ed.) Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape of the Last Glaciation - Archaeological Results of the Stage 3 Project: 167–90. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Nývltová-Fišáková, M. 2005. Animal bones selected for tools and decorations, in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I Southeast: A window into the Gravettian Lifestyles: 247–51. Brno: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals.Google Scholar
Oliva, M. 2003. On the importance of mammoth bone accumulations, or wits' end with ‘science’. Archeologické Rozhledy 55: 227–71.Google Scholar
Soffer, O. & Vandiver, P.. 1997. The ceramics from Pavlov I 1957 excavation, in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I Northwest: the Upper Palaeolithic burial and its settlement context: 383–401. Brno: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.Google Scholar
Soffer, O., Vandiver, P., Klíma, B. & Svoboda, J.. 1993. The pyrotechnology of performance art: Moravian venuses and wolverines, in Knecht, H., Pike-Tay, A. & White, R. (ed.) Before Lascaux: the complex record of the early Upper Palaeolithic: 259–75. Boca Raton: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J. 1997. Symbolisme gravettien en Moravie. Espace, temps et formes. Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique de l'Ariège-Pyrenées 52: 87–104.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J., Ložek, V. & Vlček, E.. 1996. Hunters between East and West: The Paleolithic of Moravia. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J., Ložek, V., Svobodova, H. & Skrdla, P.. 1994. Předmostí after 110 years. Journal of Field Archaeology 21(4): 457–72.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J., Péan, S. & Wojtal, P.. 2005. Mammoth bone deposits and subsistence practices during Mid-Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe: three cases from Moravia and Poland. Quaternary International 126-28: 209–21.Google Scholar
Valoch, K. 1975. Ornamentale Gravierungen und Ziergegenstände von Předmostí bei Přerov in Mähren. Anthropologie 13: 81–91.Google Scholar
Vandiver, P., Soffer, O., Klíma, B. & Svoboda, J.. 1989. The origins of ceramic technology at Dolní Věstonice, Czechoslovakia. Science 246: 1002–8.Google Scholar
Wojtal, P., Sedláčková, L. & Wilczynski, J.. 2005. Human activities on the faunal material, in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I Southeast: A window into the Gravettian lifestyles: 229–46. Brno: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals.Google Scholar