Dolni Vestonice

The slopes under the Palava hills held a series of Gravettian settlements of mammoth hunters, excavated from the 1920s by Karel Absolon and since by others, and the finds put this among the most important Upper Palaeolithic sites in the world. In 1925 the excavation produced the Vestonice Venus, a figure of a woman about eleven centimetres tall modelled in clay mixed with ash and fired at low temperature roughly twenty-nine thousand years ago - the oldest known fired ceramic object of any kind, predating pottery vessels by some ten thousand years. Thousands of fired clay fragments were found with it, suggesting deliberate firing as a practice rather than an accident. There were also burials, including a triple burial of three young people, and evidence of textile impressions that pushed back the known date of weaving. The site museum covers this; the Venus itself is in Brno and rarely shown.

History

About 25,000 years ago, in the Upper Palaeolithic, mammoth hunters set up a settlement here of huts built with rocks and mammoth bones, and the many finds from the slopes make it one of the most important prehistoric sites in Europe; among them is the Venus of Dolní Věstonice, one of the oldest and best-known works of art in the world. In the time of Great Moravia, in the 9th and 10th centuries, a small Slavic hillfort guarded a ford on an important trade route. Věstonice is first mentioned in 1312; German settlers came in the 13th century, and in 1460 King George of Poděbrady made it a market town. From the early 16th century until they were driven out in 1622, Anabaptists lived here, known for their learning and for the wine cellars they dug, which survive (Wikipedia, Dolní Věstonice).

What's there

• The oldest fired ceramic - the Vestonice Venus, about 29,000 years old.
• A mammoth-hunter settlement - Gravettian camps excavated since the 1920s.
• Evidence of weaving - textile impressions that redated the craft.
• A site museum - the finds and the excavation history, under the Palava hills.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Practical notes

The Venus itself is in the Moravian Museum in Brno and is displayed only rarely for conservation - what is here is a replica. The site museum is small. The excavation areas are not open ground to walk.

Nearby

The Palava hills and Mikulov are south; the Nove Mlyny reservoirs are below.