Lautscher tip

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Lautscher tip from the Großer Badlhöhle

Lautscher tips are spearheads made of bone , which are characteristic of parts of the Aurignacian culture in the younger Paleolithic . They are named after the location in the Boček cave (formerly Prince Johannes stalactite cave) in Lautsch, today Mladeč , in the Czech Republic and are also called "Mladečer peaks".

Their occurrence is isolated in the Middle Paleolithic ( Vogelherd Cave , Mauerner Caves , Great Grotto near Blaubeuren ), but more generally only in the Upper Paleolithic, especially in the Aurignacia. They are typical of Olshevia (33,000–26,000 BC), the easternmost facies of the oldest Aurignacia. Their distribution area is Eastern, Central and Western Europe.

Lautscher tips can be made of ivory , antler or bone. They have a solid, non-split base and can grow up to 18 inches in length. They were used as tips for spears or lances. Their cross-section is mostly flat-oval, almost rectangular. The stock was made in the end of the shaft by inserting it into a hole (socket) and fixing it with birch pitch , tar and / or leather strips. The tips were also tied to the side of the shaft. The smaller, mostly only a few centimeters long bone points of this time were perhaps used as arrowheads . That would mean that the bow and arrow were invented more than 30,000 years ago, but this is not considered certain.

The manufacturing process began with shredding the raw material to the desired length, with the base section also being cut at an angle. The semi-finished product was brought into its final shape by carving, scraping and grinding.

Lautscher tips were only in use for a relatively short time. At the latest in the Mesolithic they gave way to the more complicated, barbed tips that had one-piece serrated tips or were used as fish and bird spears for special purposes.

Finds

In Austria, such a point was found in the Great Badl Cave near Peggau in 1837 , but it was not possible to correctly locate it until much later. Further finds come from the Tischofer cave in Tyrol and the Lieglloch near Tauplitz .

In Germany in 1870 a 40.5 cm long Lautscher tip made of mammoth bones was found in the Wildhaus cave, near the Wildscheuerhöhle in Hesse . The find sparked discussions about the then controversial meeting of mammoths and humans in Europe.

In the Uschowa Cave (Potočka zijalka) in Slovenia , 128 bone tips and fragments were found in the 1920s. They are called Lautscher peaks of the "Potočka cave type" or "Olševa type". Olshevia is named after these finds as one of the earliest cultures of the Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe.

Another site is the Istállós-kő cave in the Bükk Mountains near Provo Heves ( Hungary ). Various stone implements and bone spear points from the Aurignacia were also found here. The lower find layer contained about 50 spearheads with split bases. This genus is called Aurignacspitze . The upper layer, also from the Aurignacia, contained only tips with a solid base, the Lautscher tips.

literature

  • Emil Hoffmann: Lexicon of the Stone Age . Munich 1999, p. 232. ISBN 3-406-42125-3
  • Joachim Hahn : Recognizing and determining stone and bone artifacts - introduction to artifact morphology . Pp. 333-335, Verlag Archaeologica Venatoria, Tübingen 1991, ISBN 3-921618-31-2
  • Gerd Albrecht, Joachim Hahn, Wolfgang G. Torke: Characteristic analysis of bullet points of the middle Young Pleistocene in Central and Eastern Europe . Publishing house Archaeologica Venatoria, Tübingen 1972, ISBN 3-17-229011-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ J. Hahn: Recognition and determination of stone and bone artifacts . Pp. 333-335, Verlag Archaeologica Venatoria, Tübingen 1993.
  2. ↑ E. Wagner: The Middle Paleolithic of the Great Grotto at Blaubeuren (Alb-Donau district). Pp. 58–59, Konrad Theiss Verlag Stuttgart 1983.
  3. ↑ J. Bayer: The Olschewakultur, a new facies of the Schmalklingenkulturkreis in Europe. Ice Age and Prehistory, 6, pp. 83-100, Leipzig 1929.
  4. ^ The collection from Steeden , Museum Wiesbaden, Natural History State Collection
  5. ↑ Srečko Brodar, J. Bayer: The Potočka zijalka, a high station of the Aurignac fluctuation in the Eastern Alps. Praehistorica, l, pp. 1–13, Vienna 1928.
  6. ^ Srečko Brodar, Mitja Brodar : Potočka zijalka. Visokoalpska Postaja Aurignacienskih Lovcev. Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti, Ljubljana 1983.