Deer antler masks from Bedburg-Königshoven
The deer antler masks by Bedburg-Königshoven are mask-like shaped deer skulls with antlers from the Mesolithic . They are considered to be one of the oldest references to prehistoric shamanism .
Location and exploration of the site
The Mesolithic site in Bedburg- Königshoven was near the former village of Morken, about 5 km southwest of Grevenbroich and 20 km southeast of Mönchengladbach . Today the place is destroyed by the brown coal mining. At the time of settlement during the preboreal , the site was located directly on the bank of an fallow arm . The actual settlement area was no longer recorded by the excavations in 1987; he had already fallen victim to the open pit. Only the shallow water area in front of the settlement was covered by the excavations and excavated over 370 m².
The site was discovered in the summer of 1987 during an excursion by the Geographical Institute of the University of Düsseldorf through the discovery of Ice Age animal bones. As a result, archaeologists from the then Paleolithic research area of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum (today: Monrepos Archaeological Research Center and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution ) examined the site. In doing so, they came across the first red deer antler mask, which stood out through clear traces of human processing. This find and the expected good preservation of organic finds were the trigger for the excavations carried out by Dr. Martin Street (Monrepos Archaeological Research Center and Museum of Human Behavioral Evolution). In addition to numerous stone tools from the early Mesolithic, many well-preserved animal bones (red deer, roe deer, aurochs, dogs, birds, fish) were discovered, including another deer antler mask. The finds are from the rubbish from the settlement on the riverbank. The research by Street revealed important information about the human way of life at the beginning of our present warm period, especially about hunting and nutrition.
Description of the masks
Both masks consist of the roof of a red deer skull with its complete antlers. The antlers of the first mask belonged to a fourteen-digit, that of the second to a twelve-digit. In both cases, the top of the skull was first removed from the rest of the skull. At the sides, the skull tops show clear round perforations approx. 1–2 cm in diameter. The nasal bone of the twelve-fender is still preserved.
Comparative finds
There are only a few comparative finds. Further specimens come from the early Mesolithic sites of Wohnplatz Hohen Viecheln , Star Carr , Berlin-Biesdorf and Plau. In contrast to the masks from Bedburg-Königshoven, the antlers in these specimens are greatly reduced and / or thinned out and the perforations are partly on the back of the skull (Hohen Viecheln, Star Carr, Plau) or not at all (Berlin-Biesdorf).
Dating
The masks lay in lake sediments ( Mudden ), which, according to pollen analysis, date to the preboreal. The C14 dating of two pieces of wood (KN-3998; KN-3999) provides an absolute date of about 9780 ± 100, or 9600 ± 100 BP for the Mesolithic settlement of the site. Analyzes of the fauna as well as the stone artifacts confirm this age allocation.
Interpretation and meaning
The interpretation of the masks as a hunting aid or part of the shamanic rite goes back to the first person who worked on the masks by Star Carr, Sir John Grahame Clark : “… had the frontlets merely been attached to stakes or structures as some form of trophy, but which would fit admirably the hypothesis that they were intended to be worn as some kind of mask or head-dress ". To date, however, there has been a lack of a well-founded study of deer antler masks, so that the scientific discourse does not go beyond the ethnological and ethnographic comparisons of Clark and the meaning of deer antler masks is only discussed in theoretical approaches. The fact that masks can have an unusual meaning is shown by the existence of hybrid creatures since the Upper Paleolithic and the increased importance of deer antlers as a symbol, which is exemplified by the lion man from the Hohlenstein barn, the Dieu cornu from Les Trois Frères , the representation of the Cernunnos on the cauldron of Gundestrup or the drawing of a shaman of the Tungus shows in different ways to this day.
New investigations into the deer antler masks by Bedburg-Königshoven in Monrepos Archaeological Research Center and Museum for Human Behavioral Development focus on the technology of their manufacture and the traces of use and can thus provide new arguments for their use and the interpretation of Paleolithic art.
See also
literature
- John Grahame D. Clark: Excavations at Star Carr. An early mesolithic site at Seamer near Scarborough, Yorkshire. Cambridge 1954.
- Chantal Conneller: Becoming deer: corporeal transformations at Star Carr. In: Archaeological Dialogues. 11. 2004, 37-56.
- Martin Street: Hunters and Shamans. Bedburg-Königshoven: a residential area on the Lower Rhine 10,000 years ago. Mainz 1989.
- Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser and Olaf Jöris (eds.): 600,000 years of human history. Book accompanying the exhibition in the Museum for the Archeology of the Ice Age, Monrepos Castle, Neuwied. Mainz 2006, 68-71.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b M. Street, Hunters and Shamans. Bedburg-Königshoven: a place to live on the Lower Rhine 10,000 years ago (Mainz 1989), 44
- ↑ a b c M. Street, Hunters and Shamans. Bedburg-Königshoven: a place to live on the Lower Rhine 10,000 years ago (Mainz 1989), 9–11
- ↑ JGD Clark, Excavations at Star Carr. An early mesolithic site at Seamer near Scarborough , Yorkshire (Cambridge 1954), 168-172
- ↑ a b c M. Street, Hunters and Shamans. Bedburg-Königshoven: a place to live on the Lower Rhine 10,000 years ago (Mainz 1989), 44–45
- ↑ Annual report of the RGZM, Mainz