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http://www.aggsbach.de/2010/11/a-gravette-fro m-willendo rf/

A Gravette from Willendorf


by Katzman

No vember 10, 2010

A Gravettian point, f ound early in the 20 th century at Willendorf I or II, a site located near Aggsbach in the
Wachau, a part of the Danube valley, about 80 km west of Vienna.
Af ter the discovery of a rich Paleolithic in France, enthusiastic amateurs in Lower-Austria looked f or similar
sites. First clues f or a Paleolithic settlement at the small village of Willendorf came f rom the discovery of
diluvial bones and stone 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 the Natural History Museum in Vienna. T his site will later be renamed as Willendorf I.

Josef Szombathy is the f irst prof 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). T he continuing exploitation of loess by the brickyard destroys the site of Willendorf I,
but in 1889 Brun reports the discovery of animal bones and lithic remains in the Ebner Brickyard (Willendorf
II).
Only limited work took place in the next years, small soundings 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 of the building of the new railway line between Krems
and Grein, f rom 1908 onwards. T he excavations were led by Josef Szombathy (at the time director of the
Anthropology Department of the Natural History Museum Vienna), but the local supervision was in the
hands of Josef Bayer and Hugo Obermaier. For their time, 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. T hey concentrated on the
rich upper levels, but during several visits of Szombathy, deep soundings were also made. At Willendorf II/2
(41 k.a BP) only a limited number of non-diagnostic upper Palaeolithic artif acts were f ound. Willendorf II/3 is
clearly a very early Aurignacian (38 k.a BP) and Willendorf 2/4 (31 k.a BP) a classical Aurignacian. T he
Gravettian / Pavlovian begins with layer 5 (about 30, 5 k.a BP) and the sequence ends with a Willendorf Kostienkian at 25 k.a. BP (Layer 9). Af ter just a f ew days of work at Willendorf II, on August 7th, 1908 the
Italian worker Josef Veran discovered a small statue, underneath Layer 9: the f amous Venus of Willendorf .
T his statue is one of the rare securely dated Palaeolithic Venuses in Middle-West Europe.
T he excavations continued with interruptions until 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 excavators 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 stratigraphy, in preparation f or his
monumental monograph of the site (Felgenhauer, 1955). Haesaerts and his colleagues undertook two
section cleaning campaigns, to collect C-14 and sedimentological samples in 1981 and 1993. T hey
correlated the strata with the regional and European loess stratigraphy and f ound astonishing early C-14
dates f or the whole sequence.
During the last years several trenches of Willendorf II were reopened and the publication of the results is
eagerly awaited. While Ph Nigst published his thesis in 2012, he still used C-14 dates f rom the 1990ies. His
new data substantiate the assumption that the lithic inventory at Willendorf II-AH 2 is Szeletian. Anyhow it
would be of eminent interest if Willendorf II/3 is really the oldest Aurignacian, and if Willendorf II/5 is really
the oldest Gravettian in Middle Europe.
Suggested Readings:
http://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
http://www.donsmaps.com/willendorf .html
About the venus f igurines:
http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/venus1.pdf

The Wachau is a World Heritage Site:


http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/970
Willendorf seen f rom Aggstein in 2009:

T he artif act comes f rom old Excavations at the beginning of the 20th century (most probably Willendorf I;
bef ore 1908):

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

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