The Upper Paleolithic cave site of Mladec in the Czech Republic contains modern human remains, Mladec-type projectile points, bone artifacts and other artifacts in a European site that would otherwise be assigned to the Aurignacian period of Europe; except that it lacks typical Aurignacian stone tools.
The human materials (skull, teeth, and subcranial bones) were identified below a calcite layer which was dated to approximately 35,000 years ago. Recent AMS dates on the bones themselves--clearly assigned to early modern human (once called Cro Magnon) have been reported at 31,000 years ago, making it one of the earliest Homo sapiens sites in Europe. Excavator Jiri Svoboda interprets Mladec as a cemetery, if anything other than accidental deposition, rather than an occupation site.
Sources
Wild, Eva M., et al. 2005 Direct dating of Early Upper Palaeolithic human remains from Mladec. Nature 435:332-335.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
