Link to this video on youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0JvW0xHI3A
Location GPS of Maszycka Cave:
50°10'44.4"N 19°50'44.7"E
(50.178999, 19.845738)
A whole text from the film
Here is the former hermitage in the Prądnik Valley, near the cave associated with it. Next to it you can find the fast current of the Prądnik River, disturbed after the last storms and downpours. It's beautiful here. Worth taking a walk and it’s worth to go further, up the slope of the Prądnik Valley, because there, hidden in a beech forest, is another cave. And about this cave is today’s video.
We are in front of Maszycka Cave which is which is a very mysterious archeological place in Poland. It is fifteen kilometers from Cracow 65 meters above the floor of Prądnik Valley. The Maszycka Cave consists of well lit
main chamber and a small chamber at the back of the cave. The cave ends in a narrow, steep and blind corridor. My husband is in it with a touch of light.
In front of the cave is a terrace which used to be about 8 meters long during the period of its occupation about 15 000 years ago.
The site in Maszycka Cave is often called "Pompeian" because of the completeness of findings, that is everything here was like it was 15 000 years ago in the camp.
The first researcher in the cave was Gotfryd Ossowski in 1883 and he explored almost the whole content of the cave. Additional field studies were carried out on the terrace in front of the cave by S. K. Kozłowski in the years 1962 – 66. The last field season was launched in autumn 2013.
Stratigraphic, planigraphic data, material analysis and absolute dating indicates that episode in Maszycka Cave was in one settlement episode. It was late autumn – early winter. In Maszycka scientists found human bones and many interesting items. Many of them were, were made from reindeer antlers, I mean most of them. Look at one of the interesting artefacts. It is an animal rib decorated with an engraving . This engraving is so irregular that it looks like some information applied graphically, not just decoration. And how do you think?
Other interesting artefacts from Maszycka are sagaies. They are the part, parts of spears which are also very good for throwing. Now artefact, artefacts called navettes. They are very rare and very important artefacts because they are also determinants of facies. I have no idea what for they made them. For me they look like weaving shuttles.
Weaving shuttles. Taken from Wikipedia. It was not written where they come from and from what time. In this case, it doesn't matter. Only appearance is important for comparison.
Anyway. Navettes and many other artefacts indicate that in Maszycka was a group of Magdalenians. This is also confirmed by radiocarbon dating.
Another thing from Maszycka worth mentioning is typically Magdalenian bâton percé, with a phallic ending on one side. In other Magdalenian sites from Western Europe, phallic motifs are often accompanied by animal ornaments. The purpose of the bâton percé was originally thought to be as a symbol of power or status, hence the early name bâton de commandement, or rod of command. It seems that this interpretation has now been abandoned. French archeologist, André Leroi-Gourhan, laughed at that idea: “an aged general... directing... an assault on a mammoth.” There are many other interpretations:
a spear-straightener - a stick needed to be straightened should pass through the hole,
a spear thrower,
a symbol of fertility, with the longer part as a male phallic symbol, and the hole as representing the vagina,
a tool for smoothing and shaping leather thongs,
a sex toy,
focusing on the engraved motifs, this item could have a ritual significance.
So, I think that you can have many other interpretations. Maybe you have any idea what, what was it?
The assemblage from the cave contains reindeer antlers, sometimes, very rare, mammoth tusks horses’ bones and in one case it was a bird's bone. Here were also many stone artefacts: flint scrapers, cores, blades an so on. The analysis of flint artefacts showed that about 95% of the total inventory was made of several varieties of flint from locations up to 20 km from the cave, mainly 1–12 km from it. Approximately 5% are from further regions, e.g. from Silesia, Volhynia, south-east Germany and radiolarites from the Pieniny.
At the site the researchers found also semi finished products with traces of processing also shells, sometimes fossilised, as well as lumps of mineral pigments such as limonite, hematite and manganese.
Let's go into the cave. According to the researcher, prof. Kozłowski, at the end of a steep corridor 15,000 years ago was a second entrance. And now something from the symbolic-religious field. In prehistory, I like this subject the most. Besides, combined with art. So, a bovine’s skull was found at the end of the corridor , that means, next to the second entrance. Near the present entrance, however, a skull of saiga antilope colored with ocher was discovered. The context shows that both skulls were placed in these places by humans. Researchers are sure that none of these skulls was related to the consumption activities and their meaning should be placed in symbolic functions.
And look here. You can say – ordinary place after a campfire. You can say – many campfires. But in combination with the information that the opening in the ceiling already existed in the Stone Age, it gets interesting because the place under the opening is the best place for a fire in the whole cave. So you can assume with a high degree of certainty that 15,000 years ago people also lit their fire in this place. Looking at the recent burn marks is like touching the distant past. Magical! Finally, let’s talk about the mysterious incident - perhaps murder with cannibalism in the background. The fact that the findings from Maszycka are complete, which is unusual among Palaeolithic sites, leads us to a criminal trail. The researchers interpreted this situation as the result of the sudden disappearance of people living here and leaving everything without any selection. Considering that archaeologists also found human bones at the site, they interpreted this sudden disappearance as the result of the murder of all inhabitants by some outer group. This is a classic interpretation but some archaeologists now raise doubts about such conclusions. Let's take a look at this issue.
The classic interpretation of the secret from the Maszycka Cave can be found in the works of prof. Kozłowski, as well as, let's list briefly selected publications:
Kozłowski et al. 1993
Kapica et al. 1995
Pettitt 2011
The human bones found in Maszycka Cave are represented by 50 fragments stored in the Archeological Museum in Kraków and in the Warsaw Uniwersity. Most of them found Gotfryd Ossowski in 1883. The exact position of those remains isn’t known. We only know that they were found inside the cave. In another field research professor Kozłowski found some additional human remains and they were in front of the cave and in the terrace.
A first anthropological analysis was conducted by Kapica and Wierciński and they identified 16 individuals of both sexes, adolescents and children. Analysis of these bones showed signs of splitting, cutting, scraping and burning. There were also teeth marks on them. Some of these traces have been interpreted as manifestations of cannibalism. Some of the cutting marks on the bones of the skulls have been interpreted as being used to extract the brain in order to eat this brain (Kapica et al. 1995, Pettitt 2011).
Classically, researchers interpreted this situation as a sudden attack. Perhaps at night, because it is easier to surprise sleeping people. The attackers murdered all the inhabitants of the camp in the Maszycka Cave and finally ate them during a feast, which was accompanied by the burning of fires and, looking to the signs of burning on the bones, baking the human remains. We can even guess who these attackers might have been. Among the artifacts from the Maszycka Cave, some weren't made by people of the Magdalenian culture. Prof. Kozłowski identified them as the property of representatives of the culture known as Eastern Gravettian.
Everything is clear here, except for one detail - at the site in the Maszycka Cave, almost only skull bones were found, while there were no resistant parts of the skeleton, such as the shafts of the femurs and tibia. In fact, in the case of cannibalism, whole long bones should be preserved, possibly damaged, but they should be there.
Classical studies say so much about this macabre story, but, however, in 2017, the collective work "Human Remains from Maszycka Cave" was published, you can find it in the bibliography where the authors describe the re-analysis of the bones. Their research shows that there were perhaps fewer people murdered, maybe 9. In addition, they say, traces of scraping and cutting were found on only 3 bones, other traces were considered by researchers to be formed naturally over millennia. The authors of this study are inclined to the idea that these traces were related to a secondary burial. There is also an incompleteness of the bones, which would confirm their opinion. However, I did not find in this study an explicit reference to the signs after burning and tooth marks on the bones.
And the completeness of the finds at the site is puzzling. I mean this "Pompeianness", indicating the sudden disappearance of the inhabitants at one time.
A mysterious story, enigma that is still unsolved. The more addictive that it is accompanied by a possible criminal history.
That's all for today. Thanks for watching and I recommend subscribing because the prehistoric series will be continued. So see you soon. Bye.
Bibliography:
- Stefan Karol Kozłowski, Thomas Terberger, Dariusz Bobak, Jörg Orschiedt and Marta Połtowicz-Bobak "Eastern borders of the Magdalenian ‘à navettes’ Maszycka cave in Lesser Poland (Southern Poland)"
- Jörg Orschiedt, Tim Schüler, Marta Połtowicz-Bobak , Dariusz Bobak, Stefan Karol Kozłowski, Thomas Terberger "Human Remains from Maszycka Cave (woj. małopolskie / PL): Treatment of Human Bodies in the Magdalenian"
- Stefan Karol Kozłowski, Marta Połtowicz-Bobak , Dariusz Bobak, Thomas Terberger "New information from Maszycka Cave and the Late Glacial recolonisation of Central Europe".
