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Exploring Eemian Interglacial Landscapes. Taphonomy and site formation processes at the region of Neumark-Nord (Sachsen-Anhalt, Northern Germany)

Subject Area Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
Term from 2011 to 2015
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 192092806
 
Final Report Year 2016

Final Report Abstract

The last interglacial (Eemian, MIS 5e, approx. 125,000 years BP) lake-land at Neumark-Nord (Saxony-Anhalt) offers a rare opportunity to study Neanderthal behaviour during interglacials on the Northern European Plain. Understanding the adaptation of Neanderthals in respect to interglacial environments will contribute to a better evaluation of the evolution of the behavioural repertoire or the “behavioural plasticity” during the Pleistocene. Multidisciplinary studies of the large basin Neumark-Nord 1 (NN1) and the flanking small pond Neumark-Nord 2 (NN2) revealed contemporaneous high-resolution environmental archives, in which the archaeological record is placed in a narrow time frame and distinct spatial context. The funded project focussed on zooarchaeological and taphonomical analyses of faunal assemblages from NN1 and NN2 (find horizon NN2/2). Both assemblages were deposited during the Corylus-phase in the vegetation succession of the Eemian, but they are completely different in nature. At NN1 we analysed a minimum number of 224 complete deer skeleton scattered within the basin. In contrast find horizon NN2/2 is a highly fragmented faunal assemblage deposited along the margin of the small pond NN2. For NN1 we can demonstrate that Neanderthals played a role in the formation of the deer skeleton assemblage. In contrast to previous interpretation, the deer skeleton must have been deposited under dry conditions for a certain amount of time, before they became embedded in a waterlogged deposit. Neanderthal had access to the skeletons as we could find presence of cut marks on individual bones and entire skeletons. In addition, we found evidence of potential hunting lesions on the bones. This evidence is currently under further examination. At NN2/2 more than 100,000 fragmentised bones, from more than 160 individuals, mostly horses, large Bovids and Cervids were analysed. Our results suggest an exclusively anthropogenic origin and in-situ spatial context of the assemblage. Evidence of ravaging by carnivores is absent and hydrodynamic overprint is very limited. Data on age and season of death indicate perennial hunting throughout the year, with no strict focus on certain age classes of prey. Hunted individuals were transported to the site and intensively processed, indicated amongst others by the high amount of butchery marks, the timing of breakage and the high fragmentation of the bones. The presence of burnt bones, the overall spatial context of the assemblage, and spatial features, such as roundish depressions in which bones were deposited suggest heat treatment of bones most likely for boiling out fat and marrow was performed at the pond NN2. The permanence of occupation of the Neumark-Nord lake-land, as our result suggest, is not demonstrated in other environmental settings of the Middle Palaeolithic on the Northern European Plain. Settling in favourable biotopes over a prolonged time with intense exploitation of nutritional resources may have been the behavioural adaptation towards the interglacial, partially forested environments of the Eemian.

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