Pavlov VI: an Upper Palaeolithic living unit

Abstract

This newly discovered and excavated site defines an Upper Palaeolithic activity unit consisting of a roasting pit at the centre of an area 5m across. Although the main task was the processing of two mammoths, there were numerous other wild animals in the assemblage. The occupants used flint knives, made bone tools and modelled in baked clay – on which they left their fingerprints, along with imprints of reindeer hair and textiles. Pavlov VI offers an exemplary picture of the basic living unit that made up the settlement clusters of the Gravettian people in Central Europe.

Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing

“…S1), belonging to the Gravettian. This phase fits with the three accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14 C dates, the most reliable of which is the oldest (from a hearth): 28,298 ± 301 calibrated (cal) BC (Beta-106549) (12).…”

“…A number of Upper Paleolithic sites also yielded grindstones (8)(9)(10), some of which may have served for grinding plant tissue, whereas others were used for grinding ochre (11). Here we report on starch grains recovered on grinding stones from three Mid-Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian or Gorodtsovian) sites across Europe: Bilancino II in Italy (12), Kostenki 16 in Russia (13), and Pavlov VI in the Czech Republic (14).…”

Paleolithic hunting in a southern Moravian landscape: The case of Milovice IV, Czech Republic

“…Tertiary molluscs (Scaphopoda, Bivalvia, Gastropoda) of Badenian, Sarmatian, and Pannonian ages found at Milovice IV originate from the Carpathian Foredeep or Vienna Basin, indicating a similar composition and origin to the mollusk assemblages found at other Gravettian sites in the Dolní Vě stonice-Pavlov-Milovice area (Hladilová, 1994(Hladilová, , 1997(Hladilová, , 1998(Hladilová, , 2005Svoboda et al, 2009). The Milovice IV sample included more or less complete shells of Dentalium badense, Pirenella picta picta, Pirenella picta mitralis, Pirenella nodosoplicata nodosoplicata, Astraea meynardi, Conus vindobonensis, Melanopsis vindobonensis vindobonensis, Zonaria sp., Alaba costellata anomala, Glycymeris pilosa deshayesi, Cardites partschi sp., and some undeterminable fragments.…”

Interdisciplinary Research on the Moravian Upper Palaeolithic in the New Millennium (2001–2013)

“…Svoboda et al 2010a;2011b), two new sites were discovered and excavated here. The Pavlov VI site, which was interpreted as a Pavlovian living unit, yielded a rich collection of lithic artefacts, animal bones, pieces of baked clay and pierced pebbles with engravings ( Figure 4; Svoboda et al 2008;. M. Králík and M. Nývltová Fišáková were able to recognise certain finger and animal hairs imprints in the baked clay pieces found at this site (Králík et al 2008).…”