The Epigravettian of Kůlna Cave?

Abstract

Several archaeological artefacts from Kůlna Cave (Blansko disctrict, Czech Republic) date its settlement to the last 250 thousand years. The stratigraphy both inside the cave and at the entrance was complicated, so that macroscopically similar sediments may have comprised of Magdalenian, Gravettian, and Micoquian industries. The first radiocarbon dates surprisingly showed one Epigravettian date, obtained from an animal bone from layer 5, supposedly belonging to the Magdalenian. Also, a further series of dates from strictly controlled contexts (i.e., those definitely correlated with a single layer) showed interstratification of finds between layers. The question of whether there was indeed an Epigravettian settlement phase of the cave was tested with the analysis of butts of debitage, and preserved cores from layers 5 and 6, to specify the used knapping technology. It became clear that the used technology was uniform throughout Magdalenian layers 5 and 6, but spatial analysis of hearths and heated artefacts indicate these were likely to have been disturbed and may also include older material.

Pre-LGM loess deposits in caves of Polish Jura – occurrence and stratigraphic importance

“…In the Moravian Karst, the reference site with the best-known lithology and stratigraphy is Kůlna Cave (Valoch 1988). This sequence was also dated by several independent techniques, including biostratigraphy, radiocarbon, ESR and paleomagnetic approach (Valoch 1988;Rink et al 1996;Sroubek et al 2001;Neruda and Nerudová 2014;Nerudová and Neruda 2014). The correlation between the Biśnik Cave and Kůlna Cave sequences was proposed before (Krajcarz et al 2014).…”