Štýřice III (Koněvova St. or Vídeňská St.) – an Epigravettian Site in Brno (Czech Republic)

The paper summarises the results of Palaeolithic research in Vídeňská (former Koněvova) Street in the city of Brno. After the first small-scale excavations carried by K. Valoch in 1972, primarily rescue excavations in recent years (2009–2014) have revealed the extent and intensity of the Palaeolithic settlement. The specific features of the locality are represented by imported raw materials, a high frequency of burins compared to other tools and a predominance of Mammuthus primigenius among the faunal remains. The settlement was earlier classified as Epigravettian which is confirmed by new radiocarbon dating. Based on the knowledge obtained in the immediate neighbourhood of the locality, it became apparent that this convenient area near the river repeatedly attracted people to build settlements in these places, in all probability specialised groups of hunters. Despite the climatically unfavourable final part of the LGT period (after a definition by Markova et al. 2013), within which the settlement at Brno-Štýřice III falls based on radiocarbon dating and malacofauna, we can take into consideration a denser settlement strategy than is usually assumed in the broader context of the Middle Danube Region. IANSA 2014 ● V/1 ● 7–18 Zdeňka Nerudová, Petr Neruda: Štýřice III (Koněvova St. or Vídeňská St.) – an Epigravettian Site in Brno (Czech Republic) 8 Figure 1. Localization of the discussed sites in Brno: 1 – Štýřice III; 2 – Štýřice IIIa, 3 – Kamenná St.; 4 – Vídeňská St. Hospital; 5 – Polní St.; 6 – Vídeňská St.; House No. 25 (drawing by P. Neruda). archaeological rescue excavation over an extremely limited area was conducted here by K. Valoch in 1972 (Valoch 1975). An investor bought up large plots of land in 2009 with the aim of building a housing complex with underground parking. With the knowledge of the existence of Palaeolithic as well as prehistoric and early medieval settlements, a need arose to carry out a comprehensive large-scale rescue excavation. The Palaeolithic locality, which is also known in literature as the Koněvova (Valoch 1975) or Vídeňská Street (Wienergasse), was later renamed more exactly according to the relevant cadastre within which it falls, and given an appropriate ordinal number (Neruda, Nerudová 2010). The different naming of this locality in the relevant literature is caused by the fact that the name of the street itself has changed several times in the past – it was called Koněvova St. as of 25th September 1945, and again bears the name Vídeňská St. as of 27th February 1990 (http://encyklopedie. brna.cz/home-mmb/). Despite the historical changes in the naming, it is still the same locality although, unfortunately, completely destroyed by buildings at present. 1.2 Geographical overview and stratigraphy The site is located in the south-west part of Brno, approximately 300 m to the south of the current bank of the Svratka River (WGS-84: 49° 11ʹ 2.5505ʹʹ N, 16° 35ʹ 41.6602ʹʹ E; S-JTSK: 1161873.78, 599243.33 – the centre of the locality). Here at an elevation of 210 m above sea level (10 m above the river) is a step in the terrain which on the west side rises up into the low but steep cliff of Lower Devonian conglomerates known as as the Červený kopec Hill with a maximum height of 311.42 m above sea level. The Quaternary cover of the region under review is formed by an accumulation of eolian (loesses) and colluvial sediments deposited on a terrace consisting of clay fluvial gravels and sandy gravels of Quaternary age, which were detected at a depth of 202–204 m above sea level. A geological probe revealed that the sequence of Pleistocene sediments at the locality is not divided by any distinct fossil soils. Towards the superposed layers, the sequence of loesses and loessy sediments is covered by an orange silty sediment C (weakly developed soil followed by Holocene 0 300 m IANSA 2014 ● V/1 ● 7–18 Zdeňka Nerudová, Petr Neruda: Štýřice III (Koněvova St. or Vídeňská St.) – an Epigravettian Site in Brno (Czech Republic) 9 brown earth; Nerudová et al. 2012, Figure 2). Within the whole area under investigation, Holocene soil inclusive of the A and B horizons is only preserved in higher parts (i.e. at the W and SW edge of the excavated surface). In the central part of the slope only a relic of the B-horizon is preserved and in the NE and E part of the investigated area (i.e. in the lowest parts) the B-horizon is not preserved at all this being the reason why the A-horizon settled here immediately upon the Pleistocene sediments. Archaeological finds of the Palaeolithic age were found in the lower part of the Upper Weichselian loess cover, which formed a 25 cm (approx.) thick layer of orange-brown loesslike sediment (weakly developer soil) here. This layer was almost continuously present over the entire investigated area whereby it followed the inclination of the terrain, which was quite steep in certain places. There was a relatively sharp border between the horizon with archaeological finds and underlying sediments. Although the lithic artefacts and bones were deposited in loess-like sediment, a base of the superposed chernozem horizon A sporadically intruded (e.g. the upper part of a mammoth jawbone discovered in square 9/Q).