Pavlovian culture

The Pavlovian culture is the modern name given to a distinctive Upper Paleolithic culture that existed in the region of Moravia, northern Austria and southern Poland around 29,000 – 25,000 years BP. The culture used sophisticated stone age technology which allowed it to survive in the tundra region on the fringe of the ice sheets at the peak of the last glaciation. Its economy was principally based on the hunting of mammoth herds which supplied abundant meat, fat for fuel, hides for tents and large bones and tusks as a building material for winter residences.

Its name is derived from the village of Pavlov, on a slope of the Pavlov Hills, next to Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. The site was excavated in 1952 by the Czechoslovakian archaeologist Bohuslav Klima. Another important Pavlovian site is Předmostí, now a part of the town of Přerov.

Excavation has yielded flint implements, polished and drilled stone artifacts, bone spearheads, needles, digging tools, flutes, bone ornaments, drilled animal teeth, and seashells. Art or religious finds are bone carvings and figurines of humans and animals made of mammoth tusk, stone, and fired clay. Textile impression made into wet clay give the oldest proof of the existence of weaving by humans.

It is considered to be a variant of the Gravettian culture.

Notes

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/gravett_rozcestnik_a.htm

References

• Grigor’ev, G. P. Nachalo verkhnego paleolita i proiskhozhdenie Homo sapiens. Leningrad, 1968.
• Filip, J. Enzyklopädisches Handbuch zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte Euro-pas, vol. 2. Prague, 1969.