Why go
The Venus of Dolní Věstonice connects this landscape to Paleolithic ceramic work. Later Celtic Boii, Germanic groups and Slavic settlers occupied parts of the region before the rise of Great Moravia. This earlier sequence helps distinguish archaeology and settlement history from the later Bohemian royal story visitors meet in Prague and elsewhere.
The full story
The Venus of Dolní Věstonice gives early Czech history a tangible starting point: a Paleolithic ceramic figure found in South Moravia. It belongs to a period long before the castles and towns that dominate most visits. Later, Celtic groups including the Boii lived in the region; their name survives in the historical name Bohemia. Germanic groups, among them the Marcomanni and Quadi, also settled in parts of the area. Slavic settlement developed in Bohemia and Moravia during the early medieval centuries. The account then shifts from scattered communities to political groupings, including the realm associated with Samo and, later, Great Moravia. These stages should not be read as a single uninterrupted national history. They explain why an archaeological find near Dolní Věstonice, the name Bohemia and Moravian early medieval heritage belong to different chapters of the same landscape.