Hamburg culture

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The Hamburg culture or Hamburg group (13700–12200 BC) is an archaeological culture from the end of the Paleolithic Age that was widespread in the Netherlands, northern Germany, Denmark and Pomerania , northern Poland . It is one of the last Upper Paleolithic cultural groups at the end of the Vistula Glaciation and is partly classified as Late Paleolithic . Climatically, it falls in the time of the first rewarming in the Meiendorf Interstadial and the subsequent short cooling phase.

The Hamburg culture was named after finds on the banks of the Alster near Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel in 1931. The term was coined in 1933 by the prehistorian Gustav Schwantes, who worked in Kiel . In 1933 Alfred Rust discovered the Stellmoor site in Hamburg-Meiendorf .

Distribution and structure

Schematic representation of the maximum glacier advances of the three last glaciers in the north German lowlands:
  • Ice edge of the Vistula glaciation
  • Ice edge of the Saale Glaciation
  • Ice edge of the Elster Glaciation

    • The distribution area of ​​Hamburg culture is north of the low mountain range threshold. Seasonal hunting grounds, in which mainly reindeer were hunted, are characteristic. Winter camps are located in what is now the southern North Sea, the coastline of which reached as far as the Dogger Bank because of the seawater binding in the glacial ice of the Vistula Ice Age. The north of Eastern Germany and Pomerania was a wetland with a lot of moors and swamps, so finds on the Baltic coast are rather rare. Presumably it was used as a hunting ground. Only later successor cultures were able to establish themselves permanently on the southern Baltic coast as the landscape dried up. The spread along the southern Baltic Sea coast was therefore naturally limited. The Hamburg culture precedes the penknife groups and the Ahrensburg culture .

    In the subsequent cold phase ( Older Dryas Period 11,590–11,400 BC) there was probably a migration to the low mountain range. Evidence for this is provided, for example, by typical notch points on the Petersfels near Engen (Baden-Württemberg).

    In the younger phase about 13,000 years ago (younger Dryas 10,730–9,700 BC) the so-called Havelte subgroup was formed in the northwestern distribution area , which specialized more in the stationary game red deer and elk .

    Way of life

    The environment was initially shaped by the Ice Age . However, from around 12,700 BC onwards, Especially the summer temperatures rise sharply ( Meiendorf-Interstadial GI 1e); the pollen diagrams of Central Europe then show a park landscape of willows ( Salix ), birches ( Betula ) and juniper ( Juniperus ).

    Large herds of reindeer migrated to the northern tundra areas in summer and back to the more southern areas in winter. These reindeer herds were probably hunted by the hunters of this culture with spears and spear throwers, and they also hunted horses, small game, birds and fish. Only floor plans of pole tents are known as dwellings for settlement areas of Hamburg culture.

    Find places

    Hunting grounds with numerous reindeer remains and tools are located in the Ahrensburg Tunneltal east of Hamburg, such as the Stellmoor and Poggenwisch discovery sites . At the Meiendorf site, Alfred Rust discovered a total of 33 reindeer antlers and numerous bones in connection with flint artefacts in the silt layers of a late glacial pond during his 1933-34 excavations . Contrary to the initial interpretation that it is a matter of reindeer carcasses weighted down with stones, it can now be assumed that these carcasses were relocated naturally.

    On the Stellmoor hill (near Hamburg), Alfred Rust proved the stratigraphic sequence of the younger Ahrensburg culture over the Hamburg culture for the first time during his excavations in 1935–36 . At the Poggenwisch site in the Ahrensburg tunnel valley, which he excavated in 1951, a tent floor plan was uncovered. Another special find is a 15 cm long antler stick with a depiction of a face, whose similarity suggests the simultaneity with objects from the level Magdalenian IV in southern France (e.g. the face of Le Placard ).

    Other sites, for example Hasewisch ( Stormarn district ), are listed in Grimm / Weber (2008).

    Material culture

    The tip of the Hamburg culture from Bjerlev Hede, Midtjylland; Danish National Museum

    Typical flint tools are notch points , as well as drills, burins , scrapers and prongs (sometimes double prongs ). Harpoons were made from bones and antlers.

    swell

    1. ^ Grimm & Weber: The chronological framework of Hamburg culture in view of old and new 14C dates . In: Quaternary. Volume 55, 2008, pp. 17-40 (English with a German-language summary).
    2. ↑ T. Litt, M. Stebich: Quaternary International 61, 1999, pp. 5-16.
    3. ^ Alfred Rust: The Upper Palaeolithic Tents of Ahrensburg. (= Prehistory and early historical studies from the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum for Prehistory and Early History in Schleswig and the Institute for Prehistory and Early History at the University of Kiel. New series 15). Publishing house K. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1958.

    literature

    • Archaeological State Museum of the Chr.-Albrecht University (ed.): Stone Age Hunters in Schleswig-Holstein. Schleswig 1998.
    • E. Probst: Germany in the Stone Age. Munich 1991, ISBN 3-572-01058-6 , pp. 102-106.