Venus of Dolní Věstonice and Petr-Petrovice kiln date Central European clay to ~29,000 BC

November 05, 2026Czech RepublicArtifactShare

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Key facts

• The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, found in the Czech Republic roughly 100 km north of Vienna, is described as the world's oldest known clay-fired sculpture, dated to about 29,000 BC; it is held in the Natural History Museum in Vienna.
• Petr-Petrovice in the Czech Republic is reported as the location of the first known pottery kiln, indirectly dated to 29,000-26,000 BC.
• These hunter-gatherer ceramics predate by more than 15,000 years the phase known as the 'pre-pottery Neolithic', showing that some archaeological period names are misleading.
• The earliest ceramics predate the Neolithic farming cultures of the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia, which arrive much later from the east.
• The presenters remark that much of the earliest ceramics is concentrated in Central Europe, which complicates West-centred cultural narratives.
• They also question the assumption that 'hunter-gatherer' means fully nomadic: making a clay-lined hearth implies some degree of settlement.

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