Markkleeberg site

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Markkleeberg site is an important site for the Middle Paleolithic in central Germany. According to today's description, it is located on the northern edge of the artificial Markkleeberger See in Markkleeberg , Leipzig district .

Archaeological importance

At the Markkleeberg site, the oldest archaeological monument in the Free State of Saxony, the earliest evidence of man's ability to settle in the Ice Age cold steppe is available. For the first time, a new level of technological development becomes visible in cultural evolution. The manufacture of stone tools from flint bulbs according to pre-planning dismantling concepts ( Levallois technology ).

For the research history of prehistoric archeology in particular and Ice Age research in general, Markkleeberg is of fundamental importance. Here a dispute ignited and spread about the meaningfulness of the technological level of development of primitive man and its cultural classification compared to an absolute chronological age and geostratigraphic classification.

Research history

The Markkleeberg site was discovered in 1895 by the regional geologist Franz Etzold. At the beginning of the 20th century, Karl Hermann Jacob (Jacob-Friesen) went to the gravel pits. Hugo Obermaier , co-founder of European Palaeolithic research , commissioned him to collect “ Eolites ”. His concern was based on the discussion that was held at the time about the counter-evidence of a particularly early settlement in Europe. Eolites are naturally formed fragments of rock that have similarities with man-made artifacts . Karl Hermann Jacob sent the objects he had collected to Hugo Obermaier, who realized that they were not eolites, but actually man-made artifacts.

An extensive collection activity followed, thousands of flint artefacts were found and are now in the holdings of many museums and collections. Karl Hermann Jacob published his finds together with Carl Gäbert, who carried out the geostratigraphic assignment. Gäbert located the basic moraine of the Saale Cold Age above the find layer and thus came to a minimum dating to the penultimate Ice Age (> 130,000 years). In doing so, he embarrassed the still young research on the Paleolithic. In France, the motherland of Paleolithic research, a chronology scheme had been developed, whereby the stone artefacts of the prehistoric people, which were grouped in different inventories, were assigned time benchmarks. Markkleeberg did not fit into this scheme, since the artefacts appeared far too progressive compared to their geostratigraphic location. The idea that blades, prepared Levallois cores and Moustéri points (scrapers) should be older than the Eem warm period (128,000 years) caused unrest in the field.

In the 1950s, the geologist Rudolf Grahmann advocated dating the artifacts to the Saale Ice Age. As part of his geological research on the Quaternary of Central Germany, the Markkleeberg archaeological site was of central importance to him. As a successor to Grahmann, Lothar Eißmann repeatedly insisted on the privilege of geostratigraphic classification over cultural archaeological dating.

Only after Alain Tuffreau in France and Gerhard Bosinski in Germany were able to prove at sites such as Biache-Saint-Vaast or Rheindahlen in the seventies and eighties that a Middle Paleolithic with mousteroid tools could be older than the Eem warm period was the inventory of Understand Markkleeberg.

During the open-cast lignite mine until the end of the 1980s, it was not possible for economic and political reasons to examine the site in its entire extent and in its variety of sites and concentrations. He largely fell victim to the open pit. Wilfried Baumann and various collectors were able to recover some artefacts, and Dietrich Mania was also able to carry out an emergency excavation, but no professional documentation took place. During the investigations by Baumann and Mania, preparation cuts and raw products were also archived. In contrast to Grahmann, who saw human activities in Markkleeberg in connection with the hunt for migrating animal herds, Mania, Baumann and Eißmann established a connection to the supply of raw materials with flint.

The excavations 1999–2001

On the northern slope of the Espenhain opencast mine , excavations by the Saxon State Office for Archeology were carried out between 1999 and 2001. The excavations were carried out as part of renaturation measures to establish a local recreation area. They were limited to the areas in which earth movements were intended for open pit remediation. Preliminary investigations carried out in the summer of 1999 led to the finding that sediments were found. The first stone artifacts were also discovered in two search cuts. This was the reason to start excavations in 2000.

stratigraphy

Various geosections in north-south extent served to localize the main terrace and thus the find areas as well as to clarify the geostratigraphic sequence and morphology of Ice Age sediments . At the beginning of the Elster Age glaciation , the Leipzig-Delitz band clay was deposited over early Pleistocene sediments. Above that lie ground moraines from the Elster and Saale periods as deposits of the glacier advances . Band clays, sands and gravels from the advance and retreat phases of the glaciers are interposed between the ground moraines. Finally, sand loosening follows as indicators of the last ice age, the Vistula glaciation . The most important objective of the investigation was the classification of the Pleiße main terrace between the ground moraines of the Elster in the lying and that of the Saale in the hanging wall .

The fine stratigraphic structure of the main terrace enables a detailed knowledge of the sedimentation conditions, the development of the river system up to its silting up. What was surprising was the discovery of a concentration of finds lying directly under the ground moraine of the Saale Cold Age, which showed clear differences in time and landscape to the main find layer at the base of the main terrace body. The artifacts of this topmost and youngest find layer are very reminiscent of the pieces that Karl Hermann Jacob assigned to his topmost find layer.

The base of the main terrace is formed by a stone base, which is to be assessed as the runoff residue of the former ground moraine of the Elster cold period. While finer sediments have been washed away, the larger components, pebbles and blocks up to the size of boulders have formed a more or less dense layer at the base of the later gravel river. The main component of this stone base is flint . Most of the stone artefacts come from this stone bed, the lowest main layer of the find.

Artifacts

The majority of sharp-edged artifacts and the location of the finds speak against relocations within the river system. However, artifacts have also been found sporadically in the hanging gravel. These are usually unrolled, i.e. H. got into the river elsewhere and happened to be deposited. In summary, they are assigned to a middle class of finds.

Until 2001, a little more than 300 m² had been excavated in detail. The thickness of the dug layers is between one and two meters. A total of 577 artifacts were recovered here. In doing so, all products were found that arise during the preparation of raw flint lumps into kernels , the preparation of these kernels and their breaking down into chips . The nuclei were mainly prepared according to the Levallois technique, i. H. precise, predictive calculations have been made for the sequence and effect of the dismantling. This is the first time this principle has been proven at the Markkleeberg site.

First interpretations of findings

At the eastern edge of the excavation area, an area in the bank area of ​​the former river or channel system of the Pleiße was examined. In the transition area between bank sediment and river deposits, there was a concentration of stone artifacts that make it possible to reconstruct the actions of prehistoric humans. The nuclei lie outside the dense concentration but are grouped around it. The kernels, from which chips and blades have been severed, have evidently been removed from concentration; H. thrown away after they were no longer needed. However, this workstation does not reflect all processes of core dismantling or artifact production. Otherwise you would have had to find a lot more stone artifacts, especially smaller pleats. The excavators discuss the following possible interpretations:

  • 1. It is the periphery of an intensely used field , in the center of which coarse debarking work and the preparation of the cores have taken place. At the point under discussion, on the other hand, a production phase at an advanced stage is documented, the finer preparation of the cores and the production of the target tees.
  • 2. The finding has only an indirect reference to a work place; rather, activities are documented here that are related to food preparation or storage design. Due to poor conservation conditions for organic materials, however, these are likely to have been largely destroyed. A few, poorly preserved animal bones such as a rhinoceros rib are associated with the stone artifacts. It is conceivable that it was the remains of a large meal.

Climate and environment

The stone bed was already under very cold climates before people came and made their artifacts here. Numerous flint bulbs were shattered or torn as a result of the frost. The stone sole was probably exposed in the permafrost. The gravel lying above the stone bed and alluvial sands reaching as far as the Saale-time ground moraine were also repeatedly influenced by permafrost , as indicated by changes in the soil such as ice wedge pseudomorphs and cryoturbations . Overall, the main terrace has been repeatedly exposed to extremely cold weather. To the north of Leipzig (in the Delitzsch and Breitenfeld opencast mines ), also in the main terrace of the Saale period, numerous oak trunks were discovered. They are indications of a warm period. This means that at least one interglacial is hidden in the gravel and sand complex of the main terrace. The cold-age climate is also reflected in the bone finds recovered from the stone bed and the river gravel, the potential hunting prey of the people of that time. The new finds such as steppe mammoth , woolly rhinoceros and horse as well as the well-known old finds were animals of the cold-age steppe. This can only partially be compared with today's tundra . There are also differences to today's savannah . The cold-age mammoth steppe was cold-dry, continental shaped, with greater temperature fluctuations between day and night as well as summer and winter. This biotope is characterized by an enormous load-bearing capacity. Extensive grass and shrub landscapes made it possible to feed large herds of animals. These, in turn, were the prey of prehistoric humans, who were not prevented by the inhospitable climate from settling in this area. For them, the availability of rich food resources was the only thing that mattered. In Markkleeberg it is documented that primitive humans, who previously could only colonize northern Eurasia during the warm periods, now succeeded for the first time in penetrating this region also during the cold periods.

A special find of the most recent excavations is the molar of a mammoth. This find is of particular importance because it can indirectly contribute to the chronological classification of the site. The number, shape and arrangement of the tooth lamellae suggest its biochronological position. The tooth is more "primitive" than those of the carcass finds from Siberia known from the late Ice Age, known as the woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius ). However, it is more "advanced" than the teeth of the steppe mammoth ( Mammuthus trogontherii ) known from the early Ice Age . The Markkleeberg mammoth is definitely older than the last glacial period (Vistula). It is probably older than the penultimate glacial period (stage 8).

Dating

The dispute in the history of research between archaeological “cultural” dating and geochronological addressing was decided by the new excavations in favor of the stratigraphic classification. In Quaternary geology , too, new ideas about past climatic developments and the structure of the Ice Age are increasingly gaining ground. Comparative studies of deep-sea drill cores and loess stratigraphies indicate global climate changes, to which the Nordic glaciation cycles were also subject. The last 800,000 years can be divided into eight ice ages , which, however, are only opposed by three (four) classic inland ice advances. Most researchers assume that between the Saale and Elster glaciers there is not just one warm period (interglacial), but two, three or more interglacials. Considerations about how many interglacials there were and how old they are are still far apart. If one assumes that the inland ice advances were particularly cold, humid and long-lasting cold periods, then it makes sense to convert the Saale Ice Age into the oxygen isotope stage 6, derived from deep-sea cores , with an age between 190,000 and 140,000 years, and the Elster Ice Age into the Stage 12, dated between 420,000 and 480,000 years ago. The opencast mine outcrops in the southern area of ​​Leipzig with the relics of the glacier advances and terraced deposits are to be assessed as type localities of the Nordic inland freezing. The new investigations by Markkleeberg are therefore also part of current global paleoclimate research .

The three find layers of Markkleeberg lie in clearly different stratigraphic positions. But they are all older than the glacier advance of the Saale Ice Age and younger than that of the Elster Ice Age. The dating latitude can be narrowed if one considers that oak trunks have become known from the main terrace (but not in Markkleeberg) which indicate a warm period (interglacial) between two cold periods.

If the Saale-period ground moraine deposited before the last interglacial ( Eem 130,000 years) dates to around 150,000 years, the finds from the gravel lenses below this ground moraine are likely to be at least 160,000 years old (isotope stage 6). The warm period “hidden” in the main terrace is at least 200,000 years old (isotope stage 7). The oldest layer of rock found under the gravel of the main terrace is believed to be more than 250,000 years old. Due to the cold-time conditions, it is placed in isotope stage 8. Since there are old Paleolithic, “more primitive” inventories of the Bilzingsleben site and finds from Schöningen , which can be dated to isotope stage 9, Markkleeberg should not be more than 300,000 years old.

The hominids of this time are assigned to the late Homo heidelbergensis . Probably the best known representative is the so-called "primitive man from Steinheim ", Homo steinheimensis . But the sites of Biache St. Vaast and Ehringsdorf are also associated with these hominids.

exhibition

literature

  • Karl Hermann Jacob, Carl Gäbert: The Palaeolithic site of Markkleeberg near Leipzig. Leipzig 1914. (Publications of the City Museum for Ethnology in Leipzig, no.5)
  • Rudolf Grahmann: The lower palaeolithic Site of Markkleeberg and other comparable locatilies near Leipzig. In: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. NS Vol. 45, p. 6. Philadelphia 1955, pp. 509-687.
  • Willfried Baumann, Dietrich Mania: The paleolithic new finds from Markkleeberg near Leipzig. Berlin 1983. (Publications of the State Museum for Prehistory Dresden, Vol. 16)
  • Joachim Schäfer, Thomas Laurat, Jan F. Kegler: Report on the excavations at the Paleolithic site of Markkleeberg 1999 to 2001. In: Work and research reports on the maintenance of the Saxon soil monuments. 45, 2003, pp. 13-47.
  • Joachim Schäfer, Thomas Laurat, Jan Kegler, Edgar Miersch: New archaeological investigations in Markkleeberg, open-cast mine Espenhain (district of Leipziger Land) . In: Praehistorica Thuringia. 10, 2004, pp. 141-170. ( Summary )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ smac.sachsen.de

Coordinates: 51 ° 16 ′ 11.6 ″  N , 12 ° 23 ′ 59.6 ″  E