Dolní Věstonice refers to an archaeological site near village Dolní Věstonice

Dolní Vestonice

Dolní Věstonice is a small village in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It is known for a series of ice age archaeological sites in the area. These sites were used by mammoth hunters, and finds include a triple burial and the Venus of Dolní Věstonice.A small fortress was built here...

 in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. The site is unique in that it has been a particularly abundant source of prehistoric artifacts (especially art) dating from the Gravettian

Gravettian

thumb|right|Burins to the Gravettian culture.The Gravettian toolmaking culture was a specific archaeological industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic era prevalent before the last glacial epoch. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France where its...

 period, which spanned roughly 27,000 to 20,000 B.C. In addition to functional gear, the artifacts found at Dolni Vestonice include carved representations of animals, men, women, personal ornaments, enigmatic engravings.

Particularly striking is a sculpture which may represent the first example of portraiture

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

 (i.e., representation of an actual person). This contrasts with the more highly abstracted and exaggerated styles of representation which were nearly universal until the dawn of high civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

. The figure, carved in mammoth ivory, is roughly three inches high. The subject appears to be a young man with heavy bone structure, thick, long hair reaching past his shoulders, and possibly the traces of a beard. Originally found in 1891, there was concern that the finding might be a hoax

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

. However, particle spectrometry analysis conducted at the University of Kansas

University of Kansas

The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...

 Space Technology Center placed the date of the carving (as opposed to the age of the mammoth ivory itself) at around 29,000 years ago.

The Dolní Věstonice artifacts also include some of the earliest examples of fired clay sculptures, including the Venus of Dolní Věstonice

Venus of Dolní Vestonice

The Venus of Dolní Věstonice is a Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE , which was found at a Paleolithic site in the Moravian basin south of Brno.-Description:...

. The remains of a kiln have been uncovered. Thousands of clay figurines have been recovered, most of them shattered into fragments. One hypothesis is that these figurines had magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

al significance, and were intentionally fashioned from wet clay so that they would explode when fired.

One of the burials revealed a human female skeleton, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. The bones and the earth surrounding it contained traces of red ocher

Ocher

Ocher may refer to:* A shade of brown—see Ochre*Ochyor , a Russian place name; alternatively romanized as "Ocher"...

, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull and one hand held the body of a fox

Fox

Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...

. This evidence indicates that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.