A Child’s Grave from the Rock Shelter Fuchskirche I near Allendorf (Thuringia, Germany) (original) (raw)
Mesolithic burials - Rites, symbols and social organisation of early postglacial communities. Int. Conference Halle (Saale), Germany, 18th-21st September 2013, Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle 13/I (2016), 2017
This article deals with a small but remarkable concentration of sites with Mesolithic human remains in the northern foothills of the Thuringian Mountains in southwestern Central Germany. Numerous caves and rock shelters are known in the Zechstein reefs south and southeast of the Thuringian Basin and the Saale-Ilm-limestone plateau. A number of these had been used already in the Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic and Late Palaeolithic, but also by the Mesolithic people. Human remains found in the middle of the 2oth century in the Urdhöhle at Döbritz, the Ilsenhöhle beneath Ranis Castle and in front of the Abri Fuchskirche I at Allendorf have been initially assigned to the Upper Palaeolithic, Late Palaeolithic or more recent periods. The context of human remains at all three localities led, together with the applied excavation methodology, to several possibilities of interpretation, either as burials or as randomly embedded loose human bones. Recent studies have led to a reclassification of the human remains and a new interpretation of the contexts of the finds. In the Upper Hall of Urdhöhle were found the disarticulated but fairly complete remains of at least one individual from the Boreal period and few remains of a second individual. Whether this was a primary burial with later turbation or a secondary burial, cannot be determined exactly. Also in the Boreal period of Mesolithic date there is the lower jaw of a child about one year old from the nearby Ilsenhöhle. In the 14C-dating of both, there is a large overlap. The mandible may have been introduced as a single piece into the cave and been relocated within to the base of an alluvial fan as loose human bone. About 1ooo years younger is the grave of a small child from the Abri Fuchskirche I. It dates to the early Atlantic period. An upper canine tooth of red deer was connected with the human skeletal remains. According to available data, the infant was buried as a primary burial in a shallow pit. Thus for the Mesolithic in the Thuringian Mountains foothills the use of naturally protected places, i.e. of caves and rock shelters, is found three times in the death ritual and burial services. In contrast, evidence of burials in open air sites as they exist further north in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt is so far lacking. Obviously, where the appropriate geographical conditions were present, the use of caves and rock shelters for burial was popular. Whether the naturally protected places in the south of Central Germany were the exclusive burial grounds or there are burials on open air sites too, can only be judged after excavations on well-preserved open air sites. At this time, a distribution of burials in Central Germany, which is also found in other parts of Europe, can be seen: burials in caves and rock shelters or their vicinity in foothills and burials on open air sites in areas without naturally protected places.
This article presents results of new research on the Mesolithic burial site at Groß Fredenwalde in northeastern Germany, where a multiple burial was first discovered by accident in 1962. Anthropological analyses identified one female with a child and two males with two children within this material. According to systematic AMS dating and 15 N/ 13 C-isotope analyses the individuals are typical Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers of the Atlantic period (c. 6 000 calBC). During re-excavation of the site in 2012-2014 three new burials including a disturbed child burial and a baby burial were recognised. There is also an outstanding burial: a young man was interred standing upright and then furnished in stages. The burial is without any parallel in Central Europe, although there are possible parallels at Olenij Ostrov in Karelia. Altogether nine individuals from at least four graves are now known; they probably belong to an early cemetery located at a prominent position in the landscape. AMS-dates assign the burials to the period from c. 6 400 to 4 900 calBC, and thus the site was in use when the first Linear Band Pottery farmers established the agricultural way of life in the region c. 5 200 calBC. Two successfully analysed individuals belong to the haplogroup U of mitochondrial lineages fitting well into the model of highly differentiated forager and farmer populations.
Baales 2012 - Knochenkiese: German (Ruhrgebiet, Westphalia) Middle Palaeolithic - Stapert
During the last hundred years or so the southern Munster embayment and the Ruhr region (North Rhine-Westphalia) produced several Late Middle Palaeolithic lithic assemblages from a distinct river sediment known as the Knochenkiese (Bone gravels). Within these sediments that form a major part of the early lower river terraces of Emscher, Lippe, Ems and their tributaries numerous Upper Pleistocene animal remains of the mammoth steppe fauna were located. Furthermore, at Warendorf-Neuwarendorf a right Neanderthal parietal bone was uncovered from a sediment also named as the Knochenkiese. The Knochenkiese lithic assemblages from Bo rop, Herne, Wadersloh, and Warendorf-Neuwarendorf are assigned to the early Keilmessergruppen (Micoquian). In 2008 at Hamm-Uentrop a further Middle Palaeolithic lithic implement was located within the Knochenkiese. However, this distinctive broad blade fragment may instead be the remnant of a site with Late Middle Palaeolithic blades destroyed by erosion of the river Lippe. Bearing in mind all the known geo-and biostratigraphical as well as archaeological information concerning these deposits there are good arguments for placing the Knochenkiese within OIS 4. Furthermore, this result supports the 'long chronology' for the Late Middle Palaeolithic Keilmessergruppen as proposed by O. Jöris in 2004.
2002
Mesolithic has experienced an important revival. One clear sign of this renewed interest in the periods are the annual meetings of the "Arbeitsgruppe Mesolithikum" (Mesolithic Working Group) which have taken place every spring since 1992. At these meetings, which take place at changing venues, topical themes of Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic interest are presented by informal lectures and it is also possible to study regional collections (artifacts, raw materials) at first hand. Numerous contributions were subsequently published together in one volume Aktuelle Forschungen zum Mesolithikum /Current Mesolithic Research, Mo Vince, Tübingen). The present paper intends to complement that collection of papers with a synthesis of developments and perspectives and to present recent research highlights in the German Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic, together with a comprehensive bibliography, to a wider international audience.
The Mesolithic bone industries of northeast Germany and their geo-archaeological background
Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum, 2020
In Mesolithic times, weapons, tools and instruments made of animal bones, antlers, and teeth will have been a normal and extensive part of man-made human equipment. Numerous Mesolithic bone artefacts have been accidentally found or dredged out from organic sediments in northeast Germany. There are more than 550 bone points and around 70 other bone tools from 71 find spots from bogs and wetlands. It is the same with some excavations: extraordinary numbers of Mesolithic bone artefacts came to light at Hohen Viecheln in Mecklenburg and at sites Friesack 4 and Friesack 27 in Brandenburg. Since the excavation of many Mesolithic sites everywhere in Northern Europe it has been very clear that implements and tools made of animal bones were an essential part of human equipment. Animal bones were a 'hard' material, but still softer and better workable than stone and silex, they were also different from wood. Therefore this raw material could be used for producing objects with more or less hard 'demands': spear-and arrowheads, daggers, knives, fishhooks, objects with a cutting edge, objects with a shaft hole, awls, chisels, ornaments, and others. The abundance of Mesolithic bone objects in northeast Germany is in some respect the result of the specific geological and geomorphological situation induced after the Weichselian glaciation of the region. There are four ice-marginal valleys with side-channels crossing the country as depressions filled now mostly with humic/ wet sediments. Additionally there are many lakes and bogs with organic sediments along the shores, also with many swampy areas. The ancient organic objects in these sediments are mostly preserved, even after some periods of cultivation in the last three centuries. Such geomorphological conditions seem to have been very favourable for the preservation of Mesolithic bone and antler relics. In Mesolithic times, weapons, tools and instruments made of animal bones and antler-by evidence of the amount of such objects at some excavated sites-will have been a normal and very extensive part of man-made human equipment all over Europe. But due to preservation conditions, excavation possibilities, and regional differences of geo-factors for chance findings, there are great differences in the distribution of objects of the Mesolithic bone and antler industries in