Last Glacial Maximum landscape and Epigravettian horse hunting strategy in Central Europe: The case of Stránská skála IV
Abstract
With the end of MIS3, the unity of larger Gravettian settlements based predominantly on mammoth exploitation split into a mosaic of smaller Epigravettian sites with specifi c behaviors and economies. Based on C14 chronology, the site of Stránská skála IV (together with Grubgraben, Ságvár and Kašov), correlates with a brief warm period after the Last Glacial Maximum around 22 ka calBP.
We detected two main accumulations of predominantly horse bones under a rock cliff suggesting that the site was not a regular settlement but rather a specialised hunting site. No features or hearths were recovered.
Lithic raw materials were imported from long distances, and the horse hunting strategy profi tted from the specifi c geographic qualitites of the site. Preferential location of Epigravettian sites in secluded valleys is a pattern generally recognized in Moravia and usually explained as a response to the harsh MIS2 climates.