The earliest settlement in northeastern Germany. Interdisciplinary explorations to discover undisturbed cultural layers and of late-glacial landscape development.

• Applicant: Dr. Katja Winkler
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2021 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448527834

At the end of the last glacial period (11600 years ago), the European lowland was settled for the last time by late palaeolithic hunter-gatherer groups. Until today, many scientific questions which leads to a better understanding of this time period have not been sufficiently clarified and require further investigation. This includes questions concerning the cultural chronological classification of the inventories, the process of their origin, migration or the assumed interaction networks. One of the main problems in answering that questions concerns the lack of absolute datings from these time period as well as the fact that modern standard excavations of late palaeoltihic sites are seldom. The area between the Elbe and Oder river has a high scientific potential for answering such questions, especially because different late palaeolithic societies lived there in close vicinity. The area in north-east Germany in particular is an interface area between inventories of Federmesser groups, the Bromme culture, Ahrensburgian and possibly Swiderian societies. In addition, this area with its numerous bogs, kettle holes and lakes offers excellent conditions for the recovery of scientifically datable organic material, which is essential for answering the above issues. Thus, the primary goals of the project are the localisation and exploration of representative archaeological sites with cultural layers, which also yields organic material and have the potential to provide new insights into chronology, the natural environment and interaction networks. The main focus is on Swidry-Ahrensburgian-complexes in the lowland of north-east Germany. Against this background, the project aims to localize and explore these cultural layers using archaeological surveying and prospecting methods in addition of an intense archaeobiological sampling framework as well as geomorphological investigations. In the case of a positive result, these located areas will be excavated in a subsequent project phase using modern excavation methods. The results of the project will give an essential contribution to the current discussion about late glacial societies of the northern part of middle Europe lowlands. Furthermore they will help to improve our comprehension of late glacial societies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants