The adornments of the Gravettian site Krems-Wachtberg in chronological and techno-cultural context

Abstract

Adornments such as pendants, beads, and other perforated objects are an important finds category in Upper Paleolithic sites. Raw materials, production technology, and use-wear can tell us much about the objects and technocultural context of their carriers. Excavations from 2005–2015 at the Gravettian (Pavlovian) site of Krems-Wachtberg provided 110 objects which can be interpreted as adornments. They consist of mammoth ivory beads and pins, perforated canine teeth and molluscs, and fossil Serpulidae. More than half of these objects were found in the context of a double burial of infants. A recently conducted investigation describes all adornments and places them into a chronological and technological context. Analyses of all objects in this study were carried out using a Keyence VHX 7000 stereomicroscope. Micro photos were produced for all objects and allowed a wide range of measurements which would otherwise not have been possible to make considering the objects’ poor state of preservation. The produced micro photos will allow for additional non-destructive morphological analyses in the future. Information concerning the preservation of the raw material, use-wear, traces of production, method of perforation, fire exposure, and residues were collected in a database. The 53 mammoth ivory beads found in the double burial in particular allowed not only for reconstructing a chaîne opératoire for the manufacture, but provided interesting information regarding the objects’ lifecycle. Polishing on the bridges of some of the pendants’ perforations, presumably caused by a thread, and the location of the polished areas in relation to their positions show that some beads had already been worn before being deposited in the burial. This suggests that they were not explicitly made for the infants’ burial as previously suggested.