Re-excavation of cultural deposits at Švédův stůl cave in the Moravian Karst, Czech Republic
• In-tact cultural deposits found at a Neanderthal site thought to be completely excavated. • New excavation confirms survival of in situ deposit dating to Middle – Upper Palaeolithic transition. • Radiocarbon and OSL results provide the first absolute dating of this Neanderthal site. • Faunal and aDNA analyses increase assemblages for understanding paleoenvironmental histories of the Moravian karst. Over the last 150 years archaeologists in Europe have targeted caves and rock-shelters. This has both enriched our knowledge of Palaeolithic cultures, and significantly reduced the number of sites with pristine, unexcavated cultural deposits dated to the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (MP-UP) transition available for study today. In this paper we report the discovery of in situ sediments which preserve artefacts dating to the Neanderthal- Homo sapiens transition period, at a site previously assumed to have been excavated in its entirety. Our results demonstrate the utility of re-investigating previously excavated sites and provide further support for hominin presence in the Moravian Karst during the MP-UP transition. In situ sediments with excavation potential still remain at this site. As well as their archaeological potential, these remnant deposits, which span the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 and possibly earlier stages, have considerable potential for enhancing our understanding of the palaeoenvironmental history of the Moravian Karst.
Authors
- Amy Mosig Way (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8896-1815)
- Piotr Moska (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6114-9595)
- Marjorie Sullivan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9856-2375)
- Ondřej Mlejnek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2806-6776)
- Nicholas Skopal
- Petr Škrdla (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4364-2594)
- Ladislav Nejman
- Petr Neruda (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5017-9107)
- Antonín Přichystal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6653-0416)
- Lenka Lisá
- Nigel A. Spooner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8534-3816)
- Zdeňka Sůvová (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9036-2694)
- Miroslav Králík (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2077-4068)
- Miriam Nývltová Fišáková (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8467-4712)
- Zdeňka Nerudová (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9654-7411)
- Duncan Wright
- Philip Hughes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7928-5229)
Institutions
- Australian National University (AU)
- Silesian University of Technology (PL)
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Australian Museum (AU)
- Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
- Masaryk University (CZ)
- IP Australia (AU)
- Institute of Physics (PL)
- Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (AU)
- Moravian Museum (CZ)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology, Brno (CZ)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology (CZ)
- The University of Adelaide (AU)
- University of Hradec Králové (CZ)
- University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (CZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Archaeological Science Reports
- Published
- 2025-10-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105449
- Primary Topic
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00