Centre for Paleolithic and Paleoetnological Research

The multidisciplinary analyses of key sites of Danubian Europe (Dolní Věstonice-Pavlov, Předmostí, Mladeč, Stránská skála, Bohunice, Dzeravá skala) are actually based on the thesis of African origin of anatomically modern humans, who substituted the aboriginal Neandertal population. This thesis was outlined by current genetic studies and finds support in the anthropological record.

The newly presented hypothesis suggests that the modern human arrival took place in several stages, or "waves". Each of them (Levallois-leptolithic industries, Aurignacian, Gravettian) poses problems of its own, and does not follow a common pattern in the archaeological record. Danubian Europe did not play a passive role of recipient of foreign populations. Technology and art of the Aurignacian is clearly of European origin, while the techno/typology of the Gravettian, even if rooted in industries of the Near East and North Africa, was enriched in Europe by new patterns of complex behavior, technologies, hunting large mammals, rituals, and art.

The Center for Paleolithic and Paleoetnological Research investigates sites related to all these "waves", however the last case, i.e. the expansion, adaptation, and a rapid development of the Gravettian, is best documented in the Moravian record. Partial results are presented in the monographic series The Dolní Věstonice Studies (hitherto 14 volumes) and at international meetings (during the last 5 years Liege, Rome, Lisboa, Lyon, Mikulov, Blaubeuren, Tashkent, Altai, Cambridge, Les Eyzies, Vienna...).

Institute of Archaeology of the ASCR (Brno)