Homo erectus from Mülheim-Kärlich
The Homo erectus from Mülheim-Kärlich from the clay pit "Carl Heinrich" in Kärlich near Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate left artefacts around a million years old , which are the oldest evidence of Homo erectus in Germany. Hand axes made of quartzite and flint , recovered in 1980 , indicate that the Mülheim-Kärlich area is one of the oldest human-inhabited places in Germany.
Homo erectus was the first human species to expand its living area into the temperate zones of Europe. Presumably he was only able to do this because he ruled fire in the Pleistocene, which was characterized by the alternation of cold and warm periods . From the time 440,000 years ago, at the end of the Cromer Complex and before the beginning of the Elster Glaciation , Gerhard Bosinski found a place to live with remains of wood that lay on top of each other in a shingled manner, as well as logs over four meters long and over 30 cm in diameter. The hunter-gatherer residence is on the bank of the former volcanic lake in the crater of a no longer active volcano in the Eastern Eifel. On the lakeshore, in addition to the remains of aquatic plants, fragments of wood that were possibly lances or spears were found. 40,000 years younger are e.g. B. the Schöninger spears from Lower Saxony . Hand axes, large scrapers and riving knives made of quartz and quartzite, which come from the gravel of the nearby Rhine , were found in Kärlich . A quartzite rubble weighing 15 kg was probably used as the anvil.
The Homo erectus hunted evidenced by the found broken bones wild horses, cattle and pigs. It is uncertain whether the approximately two-meter-long tusk of a forest elephant can be regarded as prey. Hazelnut shells indicate collecting activity.
literature
- Emil Hoffmann: Lexicon of the Stone Age , Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-42125-3 , p. 197.
Coordinates: 50 ° 23 '14.9 " N , 7 ° 28' 11.1" E