Hand ax from Pösing

The hand ax in 2009

The Pösinger coat of arms with the hand ax

The Pösing hand ax , also known as Pösinger hand ax, is a quartzite hand ax that is perhaps 80,000 to 100,000 years old , which must have been made by a Neanderthal man . At its place of storage, the Historisches Museum Regensburg , an age of 250,000 years was assumed by the end of 2016. The museum bought the piece from the heiress of the find, Berta Kagermeier, in 2008.

The hand ax was discovered on October 11, 1961 by Georg Kagermeier during earthworks on the ground of the former community pond, about one kilometer east of Pösing in what was then the district of Roding . Kagermeier, who had learned a lot about archeology from the beneficiary Franz Xaver Angerer, cleaned the honey-colored stone from local quartzite and brought it to his pastor. From there the piece was taken to the museum in Munich, where it was dated to around 100,000 years ago. The hand ax came from the interglacial between the Riss and Würm glaciers . It has been part of the municipality's coat of arms since 1982.

Initially, the hand ax, which is 151.3 mm long, 92.4 mm wide and 47.3 mm thick, was estimated to be "possibly" 85,000 years old. Gert Richter names an age of 80,000 years. Gisela Freund noted a "basal partially preserved boulder and the resulting asymmetry".

literature

• Franz Angerer: The hand ax in the community pond [Pösing] , in: Oberpfälzer Heimat 7 (1962) 7-12.
• Franz Angerer, Karl Brunnacker , B. Frenzel, Herbert Lindner: An Acheuleen hand ax from the Regental , in: Bavarian Prehistoric Leaves 27 (1962) 1-33.

Web links

• Brief description on the Pösing website

Remarks

1. ↑ Historical Museum , archive.org, December 28, 2016.
2. ↑ Special exhibition "The Prehistoric Upper Palatinate" .
3. ↑ Germania 41 (1963), p. 62 gives slightly different dimensions.
4. ↑ Historical Atlas of Bavaria . Altbayern, Commission for Bavarian State History, 1986, p. 6.
5. ^ Gert Richter: Germany. Culture and Nature Guide South , Bertelsmann Lexikothek Verlag, 1996, p. 373.
6. ↑ Gisela Freund : The hand ax from Biburg near Abensherg, Ldkr. Kelheim / Donau , in: Quartär, p. 163–174, here: p. 170 ( online , PDF).