Environment and Upper Palaeolithic adaptations in Moravia

Recently, environmental studies in Moravia concentrate on the Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov project, and the related period of 30,000 – 20,000 B.P. The sites of Dolní Věstonice, Předmostí, and the peat-bog at Bulhary were continuously studied by methods of palynology (E. Rybnǐčková, H. Svobodová), palaeopedology (L. Smolíková), and malacozoology (V. Ložek, J. Kovanda). The cultural layers developed in an unstable period of climatic oscillations between the relatively temperate Wurmian Interglacial, and the Upper Pleniglacial maximum.

Archaeology reflects changing behavioural patterns: an intensive land-use in the Aurignacian, resulting in a network of sites, and preference of marginal highlands, where deposition of the last loess cover was limited. The Gravettian, partly contemporary, is usually found in extended side-clusters under loess deposits near river valleys. By the end of the Gravettian, a horizon of sites with eastern-reminiscent articulated elements, emerges on strategic points along the passage from the Danube valley to the North European Plain. After 20,000 B.P., the Epigravettian constitutes a thin network of small sites, mostly in sheltered valley locations. Further inter-cultural differences are observed in strategies of subsistence, raw material exploitation, and transport.