Pieces of people in the Pavlovian: burials, body parts and bones in the earlier Upper Palaeolithic

TRINKAUS, Erik, Sandra SÁZELOVÁ and Jiří SVOBODA. Pieces of people in the Pavlovian: burials, body parts and bones in the earlier Upper Palaeolithic. Human Remains and Violence. 2019, vol. 5, No 1, p. 70-87. ISSN 2054-2240. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.7227/HRV.5.1.6.

Basic information

• Original name: Pieces of people in the Pavlovian: burials, body parts and bones in the earlier Upper Palaeolithic
• Authors: TRINKAUS, Erik (840 United States of America), Sandra SÁZELOVÁ (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution) and Jiří SVOBODA (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Human Remains and Violence, 2019, 2054-2240.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 50404 Antropology, ethnology
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14310/19:00109507
• Organization unit: Faculty of Science
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7227/HRV.5.1.6
• Keywords in English: Upper Palaeolithic; burial; discard; garbage; Europe; taphonomy; mortuary
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

The rich earlier Mid-Upper Palaeolithic (Pavlovian) sites of Dolní Věstonice I and II and Pavlov I (32,000–30,000 cal BP) in southern Moravia (Czech Republic) have yielded a series of human burials, isolated pairs of extremities and isolated bones and teeth. The burials occurred within and adjacent to the remains of structures (‘huts’), among domestic debris. Two of them were adjacent to mammoth bone dumps, but none of them was directly associated with areas of apparent discard (or garbage). The isolated pairs and bones/teeth were haphazardly scattered through the occupation areas, many of them mixed with the small to medium-sized faunal remains, from which many were identified post-excavation. It is therefore difficult to establish a pattern of disposal of the human remains with respect to the abundant evidence for site structure at these Upper Palaeolithic sites. At the same time, each form of human preservation raises questions about the differential mortuary behaviours, and hence social dynamics, of these foraging populations and how we interpret them through an archaeological lens.