Extending the Paleolithic into Central Europe: Heinrich Wankel and the Beginning of Paleolithic Archaeology in Moravia

Author(s): Matthew Goodrum

Year: 2025

Summary

This is an abstract from the "2025 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of David J. Meltzer Part II" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As paleontologists and archaeologists began to find flint artifacts in Pleistocene deposits in France and Britain in the 1860s, followed soon thereafter by human fossils and Paleolithic art objects, researchers across Europe raced to discover further evidence for Paleolithic Europeans. In Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic, Heinrich Wankel was the first archaeologist to discover Paleolithic sites in what was then the Austrian Empire. He excavated the important Paleolithic site of Predmost and motivated a small group of researchers who made valuable contributions to Paleolithic archaeology at the end of the nineteenth century.

Cite this Record

Extending the Paleolithic into Central Europe: Heinrich Wankel and the Beginning of Paleolithic Archaeology in Moravia. Matthew Goodrum. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 510031)

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51353