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2026-04-19 05:27:26   •   ID: 2416

Questions resolved? The Bohunician 50 years after Valoch

Plate 1
Plate 2
Figure 1
Figure 2
Two European lithic industries fit the definition of the Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP); the Bohunician, found in Moravia and adjacent areas with beginnings around 48 k.a. and the Bachokirian from Temnata cave and Bacho Kiro (Bulgaria), the latter recently dated to ~47–44 k.a. Cal BP. ( Kuhn and Zwyns 2014; Tostevin and Škrdla 2006)-see here: 1557 and here: 2334 .

An almost contemporaneous early Upper Paleolithic group is the so called Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ). It has recently precisely dated in Central Europe at Nietoperzowa Cave: (44 –42 k.a. cal BP) and the Ilsenhöhle near Ranis: (47,5-45,7 k.a.cal BP), where it was associated with remains of Homo Sapiens- see here: 2366 .

The term “Bohunician” is derived from the word Bohunice, the name of a suburb in the western part of the city of Brno (Moravia), The Bohunician industry is technologically characterized by the utilization of a specific technology described as a fusion of the Levallois and Upper Paleolithic bidirectional crested core technique. Plate I and Figures 1-5 show the desired end-product of this chaine operatoire: an elongated Levallois point.

Bohunician Assemblages are characterized by the preferred use of local raw materials which come from nearby sources. Blades and Bladelets were produced in continuity; Bladelets are rare at many sites, but in abundance present at Ořechov IV – Kabát. There is always a low number of retouched tools (mainly elongated Levallois-like Points, Endscrapers, some Leafpoints).

Plate II shows the brickworks pit at Bohunice, seen from the west as documented by Valoch during the 1970s.

About two meters below the surface, there is a marked paleosol containing the Bohunician artefacts. Older fossil soils from the last glaciation can be seen at greater depths.

Isolated Bohunician artefacts at Brno had been already reported from Kohn's Brickyard in Bohunice since the end of the 19 century. Josef Skutil reported finds of characteristic lithics on the territory of Brno's central cemetery as early as 1936.

The most important site for the definition of the Bohunician, however, is Bohunice "Kejbaly" and its vicinity, which were surveyed by Karel Valoch during loess exploitation and the building of a panel factory and new houses between 1962-1973 (completely published in: Valoch, K. 1976: Die altsteinzeitliche Fundstelle in Bro-Bohunice, Studie AÚ CSAV IV/1)- 50 years ago.

Figure 3
Figure 4
The Bohunician occupation of Central Europe is concentrated in a 100 sq. km area within the Brno Basin, where two clusters of stratified sites (Bohunice and Stránská skála), several other stratified sites (Líšen, Podolí, Tvarožná) and a series of surface artifact clusters have been documented.

Other clusters are known from Moravia, notably in the Prostějov area with the important Ondratice site (Table I)see: 2315 . Isolated sites with evolved Levallois industries have also been reported from adjoining regions including Hradsko in Bohemia, Nižný Hrabovec in Eastern Slovakia, the open air site of Herrnsaal, located ca. 5 km east of Kelheim in Bavaria, and maybe also from Dzierzyslaw I in Poland.

Figure 5 and 6 show Levallois Points, a Scaper and a Leafpoint with incomplete flat retouch as shown at the Anthropos Pavilion/Moravian Museum in Brno (Courteously by Don Hitchcock, author of the fabulous Don's Maps)

Valoch was the first who considered the Bohunician as a distinct Paleolithic entity.

He also recognized that the raw material from Bohunice primarily came from Stránská Skala, as did most of the Bohunician finds around Brno.

His description and interpretation that the bipolar, crested, and volumetric cores from Bohunice strongly pointed to upper Paleolithic traditions, and that they were fused with late Levallois / middle Paleolithic traditions, remains undisputed to this day.

Using C-14 bulk samples, Valoch dated the interstadial soil to around 40–43 ka (non-calibrated) within the Hengelo/Pod Hradem interstadial. This assessment is very close to the current view.

Was the Bohunician complex autochthonous? Valoch pointed to the contemporary local Moravian Szeletian, which shares the production of bifacial leaf points with the Bohunician. At some point he even used the designation: Szeletian of Levallois facies for the Bohunice industry.

Did the Bohunician complex have European precursors? While the Levallois-Mousterian is largely absent in Central Europe during MIS3 (Balve IV and surface collections from northern Hessen being the exception), there is a certain similarity to southern France with the Neronian and central France with the upper stratum of Fontmaure as an example. Anyhow these scattered findings are not really convincing.

Figure 5
Figure 6
Finally, Valoch introduced the recently discovered Boker Tachtit industry in Israel (50 k.a. Cal BP) to the discussion about the roots of the Bohunician.

This theory remains highly relevant today and has been expanded upon by authors such as Skrdla and Tostevin, who proposed that the Levantine Emiran and the Bohunician industries were technically one and the same.

Aurignacian settlements appeared in Moravia later than the Bohunician and Szeletian ones (Svoboda 2003). Anyhow the Aurignacian was already present during Bohunician times at Willendorf II, ca 150 km southwest from Brno (Nigst 2013).

Martin Oliva, an important researcher in Moravian Paleolithic studies, who is always eager to take on the role of a thoughtful devil's advocate in archaeological debates, has expressed skepticism and critical views regarding the strict definition and classification of the "Bohunician" as a distinct, monolithic cultural entity or "technocomplex". 

He has suggested that what is termed "Bohunician" might not represent a specific, unique human group, but rather a functional variation or a specialized workshop activity (using local Stránská skála chert) that could be related to other contemporaneous industries (Szeletian,LRJ).

From a technological perspective, one could view the Bohunician as representing nothing but a facies of the Szeletian, just being characterised by different blank production concepts that could be realized at sites where higher-quality raw materials allowed the production of elongated blanks (Levallois points).

He also has hypothesized that the distinct technological entities known as Bohunician and Szeletian in Moravia may, in part, reflect contemporaneous activities rather than just separate cultural traditions, sometimes suggesting they represent different facets of the same human behavior or interaction.

Similarly, in his 2022 review, Olaf Jöris challenges the 'monolithic' view of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic in Central Europe, instead arguing for a complex, regionalised process rather than rapid, total replacement.

The paper emphasizes technical continuity with Late and Final Middle Palaeolithic assemblages, including the LRJ, and argues for significant local roots. It also suggests earlier modernization trends by reassessing chronologies.

In Central and Eastern Europe, an association of lithic industries classified as IUP/EUP with AMH remains has been demonstrated for both the Bachokirian and the LRJ.

However, we should be cautious about assigning specific technocomplexes to only one hominin species (either Homo sapiens or Neanderthals). For now, we should leave aside the question of hybridisation between the two species, as this would further complicate the picture.

While it is difficult to trace sustainable technical traditions over a period of several thousand years, it is virtually impossible to answer the question of whether the IUP is the result of in situ innovations by European Neanderthals, or their adoption of new technologies introduced by AMH, or even the signature of (repeated) Homo sapiens ingressions.

Demidenko and Skrdla (2023) - see here: 2366 proposed that the Bohunician did not simply disappear, but rather evolved into the LRJ in Central Europe. This is an interesting hypothesis for future studies.

Of special interest in this context are the ventrally thinned Levallois points from the open-air site of Herrnsaal in Bavaria (Uthmeier er al. 2023).

These technical modifications likely enhanced the basal hafting of projectiles and help us imagine the transition from unmodified Levallois points to partially flat-retouched Jerzmanowice points.

Suggested Readings:

Demidenko, Y.E., Škrdla, P. Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician Industry and South Moravian Sites: a Homo sapiens Late Initial Upper Paleolithic with Bohunician Industrial Generic Roots in Europe. J Paleo Arch 6, 17 (2023).

O. Jöris et al.: The Late and Final Middle Palaeolithic of Central Europe and Its Contributions to the Formation of the Regional Upper Palaeolithic: a Review and a Synthesis Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 2022: 5(1):17O.

M. Olivia: Palaeolithic and Palaeolithic and Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the Czech Lands (Moravia and Bohemia in the European Context). Brno 2017.

J. Svoboda er al: Hunters between East and West. The Paleolithic of Moravia, Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer Verlag 2013.

Surf the Blog: see here: 1557 , here: 2334



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