Magdalenian with microlithic triangles revisited

Abstract

A recently acquired collection of 1332 knapped stone and 15 pebble or platy slate artefacts were analyzed to verify the dating and origin of the well-known Magdalenian site Hranice III – Velká Kobylanka in the Moravian Gate (Moravia, Czech Republic). The inhabitants of the site were processing a number of local knapped stone materials rather than long-distance imports, though (locally available) erratic flints were mostly used for tool manufacture. The most prominent as regards the typology of tools are a number of microlithic triangles, already recorded in an older assemblage from the site, indicating the Older Dryas age of the collection. The absence of raw materials from the south-west (e. g. the Olomučany chert) and typological analogies from Eastern Germany and Poland indicate that the Magdalenians from Hranice may have represented a colonization wave independent of the one that probably settled dozens of caves of the Moravian Karst. The only 14C date acquired by us from the surface comes from the Atlanticum chronozone (Holocene) and dates some younger activity at the site.