aggsbach.de-a gravette from willendorf

8/10/2019 Aggsbach.de-a Gravette From Willendorf

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aggsbach.de http://www.aggsbach.de/2010/11/a-gravette-from-willendorf/

by Katzman November 10, 2010

A Gravette from Willendorf

A Gravet tian point, f ound early in t he 20 thcentury at Willendorf I or II, a site located near Aggsbach in the

Wachau, a part o f the Danube valley, about 80 km west of Vienna.

Af ter the discovery o f a rich Paleolithic in France, enthusiastic amateurs in Lower-Aust ria looked f or s imilar

sites. First clues f or a Paleolithic settlement at the small village of Willendorf came f rom the discovery of

diluvial bones and sto ne artif acts at the Brunner Brickyard (later Grossensteiner, and Merkel Brickyard). In

late 1883, Ferdinand Brun reports the discovery of an artif act bearing horizon, belonging to the Mammoth

period to t he Natural History Museum in Vienna. This s ite will later be renamed as Willendorf I.
http://www.aggsbach.de/2010/11/a-gravette-from-willendorf/http://www.aggsbach.de/


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Josef Szombathy is the f irst pro f essional archaeologist to visit the site on December 5th, 1883. Under his

supervision Brun conducts small excavations throughout 1884; this is f ollowed by a f irst publication

(Szombathy, 1884). The cont inuing exploitation of loess by the brickyard destroys t he site of Willendorf I,

but in 1889 Brun reports the discovery o f animal bones and lithic remains in the Ebner Brickyard (Willendorf

II).

Only limited work too k place in the next years, small so undings were made by Fischer and Much. Several

small publications described various collections f rom the site. Probably the most interesting is a report by

Woldrich (1893) about the f aunal remains that also described the Willendorf 1 human f emoral shaf t.

Systematic excavations were renewed on occasion o f the building of the new railway line between Krems

and Grein, from 1908 onwards. The excavations were led by Josef Szombathy (at the t ime director of the

Anthropology Department o f the Natural History Museum Vienna), but the local supervis ion was in the

hands of Josef Bayer and Hugo Obermaier. For their t ime, these excavations were of a remarkable

accuracy compared with contemporaneous diggings (For example at Laussel).

Five new sites were discovered westwards along the new railway line, numbered Willendorf III-VII. No

excavation has been undertaken at any of these, the scientif ic work concentrated on Willendorf II. At

Willendorf II Josef Bayer and Hugo Obermaier uncovered 9 Palaeolithic layers. They concentrated on the

rich upper levels, but during several visits o f Szombathy, deep so undings were also made. At Willendorf II/2

(41 k.a BP) only a limited number of non- diagnostic upper Palaeolithic art if acts were found. Willendorf II/3 is

clearly a very early Aurignacian (38 k.a BP) and Willendorf 2/4 (31 k.a BP) a class ical Aurignacian. The

Gravett ian / Pavlovian begins with layer 5 (about 30, 5 k.a BP) and the sequence ends with a Willendorf -

Kost ienkian at 25 k.a. BP (Layer 9). Aft er just a f ew days of work at Willendorf II, on August 7th, 1908 the

Italian worker Josef Veran discovered a small st atue, underneath Layer 9: the f amous Venus o f Willendorf .

This statue is one of the rare securely dated Palaeolithic Venuses in Middle-West Europe.

The excavations continued with interruptions unt il the start of World War I, and in 1926 Josef Bayer started

a smaller campaign where the Venus II was f ound in layer 9.

Conf licts between the three excavato rs about the question, who f ound the Venus f igurine and who was in

charge at the excavation, prevented a f inal publication of the results .

In 1955, Fritz Felgenhauer re-excavated parts of the site to clarif y the st ratigraphy, in preparation f or his

monumental monograph of the s ite (Felgenhauer, 1955). Haesaerts and his colleagues undertook two

section cleaning campaigns, to collect C-14 and sedimentological samples in 1981 and 1993. They

correlated the st rata with the regional and European loess st ratigraphy and found astonishing early C-14

dates f or the whole sequence.

During the last years several trenches of Willendorf II were reopened and the publication o f the results is

eagerly awaited. While Ph Nigst published his t hesis in 2012, he st ill used C-14 dates f rom the 1990ies. Hisnew data substantiate the assumption that the lithic inventory at Willendorf II-AH 2 is Szeletian. Anyhow it

would be of eminent interes t if Willendorf II/3 is really the o ldest Aurignacian, and if Willendorf II/5 is really

the oldest Gravettian in Middle Europe.

Suggested Readings:

htt p://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staf f /nigst/pdf /Nigst%20et%20al%20-%20Venus08%20-%202008.pdf

http://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staf f /nigst /nigst -old/pdf /Nigst2006-2.pdf

htt p://www.donsmaps.com/willendorf .html

About the venus f igurines:

htt p://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses /current/venus1.pdf
http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/venus1.pdfhttp://www.donsmaps.com/willendorf.htmlhttp://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/nigst/nigst-old/pdf/Nigst2006-2.pdfhttp://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/nigst/pdf/Nigst%20et%20al%20-%20Venus08%20-%202008.pdf


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The Wachau is a World Heritage Site:

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/970

Willendorf seen f rom Aggstein in 2009:

The artif act comes f rom old Excavations at the beginning of the 20th century (mos t probably Willendorf I;

before 1908):
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/970


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New Excavations at Willendorf in 2011, a photo taken during a short visit :


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aggsbach.de-a gravette from willendorf

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