Last Glacial Maximum landscape and Epigravettian horse hunting strategy in Central Europe: The case of Stránská skála IV

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 specific 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 profitted from the specific 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.