© Antropark 2010, © Author Libor Balák, © Illustrations Zuzana Baláková

Libor Balák - kontakt: antropark@seznam.cz

Gravettian       

As I see, I am in the civilization of the Gravettiens, the biggest and the longest continued civilization of the modern man.

Hallo, welcome in the age of 30 thousands to 20 thousands years ago, on the territory from England and France to far Siberia. The huge Gravettien's civilization was creating many of the minor cultures, limited by the time and by the place. I belong to the Pavlovien's culture.

This is our pernament winter camp, from where we have a good view.

All of the Pavlovien's camps have the same position in the region, The camp and the surrounding region were dividing by the river during the summer time.

Pavlovien is the Moravia-Austrian Gravettian's culture, which is oriented in hunt of the mammoths.

But Pavloviens were hunting all kinds of animals, mostly the rabbits and the foxes. 

That's why some of the scientists call these legendary mammoths hunters, Rabbit's hunters.

You should explain to the children, when for the first time the scientists showed our image to the public.

But that is going to be a detective's job to find it out.

I have read, that the people first fertilized their fields with the bounced, which they extracted from the Pavlovien's camps and they cart these bounces away to the mill, where they crushed them down. And it was ready to fertilize.

In 1925 the people of England have had a chance to see for the first time the faces, the hair cut and the clothes from Gravettian.

The scientist and the designer refused the fantasy and they adhered to the period statues and the real finds.

Only in the middle of the 20th century, the Russian scientist remarked, that all people's skulls are not same and they give us the information about the real image of the human. Today, the criminologists routinely use his method.

That's how came into being  the portraits of the Gravettian, which also came out of the statues and real finds in the graves.

Because in the books, in the museums and in the television, they describle the Gravettians as messy ragamuffins, so we should look at it, if it's true.

But we really don't deserve it, because we Gravettians, as only prehistoric culture of Paleolithic, we left you here enough of evidence about us..

The statues that are realistic illustrate, always show nicely treated and brushed hair, sometimes with ordinary haircut.

Or with plait bun, or the reguler bun,

or with nice curly hairs. Sometimes we can find on the statues or on the graves colorful decorated caps.

And there didn't even miss the huts. Some statues have pretty, soft and creative ornamentations on their bodies, which are decorate with wristlets and belts.

Hello children! Hello everybody!

These are the children, which we know from the double grave in Gravettien. He was found close to the creek in Sungir in Russia. The grave is 25 thousands years old and 8 thousands little ivory shells, made by hand, shows us how they sew the shoes, the huts, the blouses, the pants and how the cloak was pined.

In the grave we, can see this, over 2 meters long, secret lance, made from mammoth's tusk, which the prehictoric people were able to soften and straighten by the chemicals.

In many places, the soil is frozen and in the summer, it thaws only on the surface (permafrost).

The people in the time of Gravettian have accomplished to overcome the big distances and carry heavy loads.

And I have to take a picture of this.

In the autumns, Pavlovien's women pick the harvest up in the long nettles.

From the fibers of the nettle, they prepare files and they twain with them the fancy fabrics.

And how did they sew? They sewn by tendon with help of awl and they sewn that much, that until now on the Gravettian's deposits, we find a lot of these bony tools.

Beyond the freezing, the drying, the braising and the baking, we cook on the red-hot rocks.

I'll present you the animals of our age with a pleasure. This is a legendary mammoth of north,

the musk, the wolf,

the caribou,

the horse,

nthe rhinoceros, the hyena,

 the bear of the cave,

the rabbit, the rabbit of north,

the fox of north, the fox,

wolverine,

the snowy owl, the swan,

the snow grouse, the raven,

the lion of the cave.

Gravettian opened to us the colorful view of the prehistoric times in the Europe and the North Asia, but also elsewhere, and even this kind of interesting cultures appared much more earlier.

35 thousands years ago, the mineworkers have worked in the firsts existing colliers, on today's region of the Egypt.

Ask your teacher, in the museum or in the library, where was the closest Gravettian's camp and make there a trip with your friends, your class or with your parents.

Don't forget to e-mail us, where you can write us, how did you like the guides, if the trails were well marking, if you didn't need t looking for the marking to long, what kind of feeling you have had  when you were on the locations of the prehistoric people. Write us, where was the closest restaurant, the kiosk with the souvenirs and the postcards relative to landmark. We are welcoming all of your photographs and the most interesting stories we will publicize with a pleasure.

Kontakt - Libor Balák: antropark@seznam.cz

© Antropark 2010, © Author Libor Balák, © Illustrations Zuzana Baláková