Ahrensburg culture
The Ahrensburg culture is a culture of specialized reindeer hunters from the end of the Paleolithic Age , geologically the last "tundra time" ( Younger Dryas ) between approx. 10,760 to approx. 9,650 BC. Is assigned to Chr. The habitat was the flatlands of northern Central Europe, which at that time was covered by an endglacial tundra interspersed with groups of trees . There are some stem tips with Ahrensburg affinities from Scotland.
In a settlement in Stellmoor excavated by Alfred Rust near Ahrensburg , characteristic stone tools such as handle tips and microliths (arrowheads, etc.), as well as scratches , burins and retouched blades were found. Stone, bone and antler artefacts were found in a silted up late glacial pond (Stellmoor) next to the settlement. Reindeer antlers were used to make tools and weapons, such as hoes and harpoons . Round tents served as dwellings.
The hunters of the Ahrensburg culture used bows as a hunting weapon. Alfred Rust found the first complete arrows made of pine wood with stalked tips during excavations in the Stellmoor, some of which were found with reindeer bones shot through . Apparently the hunting technique changed with the new weapons . The hunters of the Ahrensburg culture made extensive prey on driven hunts, while those of the older Hamburg culture preferred stalking.
The hollow stone cave near Rüthen-Kallenhardt is an important site of the Ahrensburg culture in the low mountain range .
literature
- Alfred Rust : The Paleolithic reindeer hunter camp Meiendorf . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1937.
- Alfred Rust: The Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age finds from Stellmoor . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1943.
- Thomas Terberger , Michael Baales (Ed.): World in Transition. Life at the end of the last ice age. Darmstadt 2016.
- Thomas Terberger, Berit Valentin Eriksen (ed.): Hunters in a changing world. Environment and Archeology of the Pleistocene - Holocene Transition (ca.11000-9000 BC) in Northern Central Europe. International Archeology 5, Rahden 2004.