Mladeč
Mladeč () is a municipality and village in Olomouc District in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 700 inhabitants. Administrative parts. Villages of Nové Zámky and Sobáčov are administrative parts of Mladeč. Geography. Mladeč lies approximately north-west of Olomouc and east of Prague. Northern part of the municipality is located in the Litovelské Pomoraví Protected Landscape Area. The Morava River flows through the rural area of the municipality. The Mlýnský brook, a tributary of the Morava, also flows through the municipality and is divided here into two branches. There are two ponds in the municipal  territory: Sobáčovský and Zámecký. History. The first written mention of Mladeč is from 1350. Sobáčov was first mentioned in 1351. Sights. Mladeč is known for the Mladeč Caves. The caves are open to the public. Archaeology. Mladeč is an Aurignacian archaeological site with directly dated remains of early modern human dating to about 31,000 radiocarbon years. The site contains remains of at least half a dozen individuals, including children. They are the oldest bones that indicate a human settlement, or community in Europe. The Mladec collection also includes Aurignacian tools and art associated with early modern humans. The remains appear  to show some Neanderthal-like features. The presence of remnant [rear skull] bones that are not present in the early modern Africans and Near Easterners do not necessarily indicate inter-breeding with Neanderthals. In National Geographic, Theodore Schurr, an anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, notes: The Mladec individuals do not consistently exhibit the same Neandertal skeletal features, to whatever extent they possess them, nor do they yield any trace of Neandertal DNA... Therefore, based on these data, the Mladec remains show no strong evidence of interbreeding between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans.