Rüsselsheim 122

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The late Paleolithic - Mesolithic site Rüsselsheim 122 near Rüsselsheim am Main in southern Hesse contains artifacts from members of the penknife culture , which were hunters and collectors from the area north of a line from Düsseldorf via Soest to Erfurt . They might have brought their usual tools with them, the raw material of which was Baltic flint, only to be found north of this line, in order to gradually replace them with tools made from local types of rock from the area around the lowest Main . The estuary of this river represented a favorable hunting location, perhaps only used for a few weeks. Tent-like structures and fireplaces as well as internal work organization based on the distribution of artefacts could be made probable.

Discovery and excavation

The two concentrations of finds, which are only 25 m apart, which make up Rüsselsheim 122, were discovered by the engineer Jürgen Hubbert and Stefan Flettner during the construction of the Rüsselsheim center access to the federal highway 60 between Rüsselsheim and Königstädten . 122 A was discovered in November 1989, 122 B in May 1990 under a top layer of dune sand. Two emergency excavations took place under the direction of Lutz Fiedler , which lasted four and six weeks. However, only finding A was completely preserved, whereas 30–50% of finding B had been destroyed by the excavator cut. Only the southern half of finding B was preserved. The excavation area covered a total area of ​​27 m², the vast majority of the finds concentrated on an area of ​​8 m².

Dating and classification

The settlement site was based on the occurrence of tephra from the Laacher See volcano , which dates back to around 10930 BC. Last erupted, in the end of the all-dead time around 11,000 BC. To date.

Some woods and pieces of charcoal were subjected to botanical examinations. However, the pieces come from a pit sunk in the northern area of ​​the finding 122 A, which could not be assigned to the penknife horizon. They settled on 7,600 BC. To date.

The site is about 3 km south of today's river bed and about 10 km east of the mouth. The find layer of A is 30 to 50 cm thick and lies in an approximately 15 cm deep hollow that slowly tapers off towards the west. Finding B is in a 50 cm deep depression with a gradient of about 55%. The finds were in and below a layer of clay and formed a 30 to 50 cm thick horizon. The site is on a drifting sand dune at the edge of the lower terrace of the Main, which rises about 10 m above the surrounding ground level. The dune belongs to an approximately 200 to 300 km² area on the south side of the Main from its confluence to the Kelsterbach area , in which large-scale drifting sand dunes have arisen as a result of the cold-time expansions of the open gravel areas.

Two latent, square structures on the two concentrations of finds, which were given the names Rüsselsheim 122 A and B , measured around 4 to 6 m². They hid numerous stone artifacts; the structures are interpreted as tents, possibly with tent walls open at the base. The barrier effect was of crucial importance, that is, the scattering of the artifacts ends more or less suddenly at a barrier that no longer exists. The same applies to the centrifugal effect, in which it is assumed that the mere throwing away of stone artifacts by people sitting by the fire leads to larger pieces flying further than smaller ones, i.e. the found objects grow concentrically around the no longer existing fireplace. These fireplaces could also be proven by stones that were obviously exposed to great heat. They were near the south entrance of the tents. For the purpose of closer examination, the site was divided into squares of 25 by 25 cm in order to obtain comparable statistical data on the distribution. Which was used correspondence analysis in conjunction with Isolinienkartierungen and kriging . An opening to the south, a central fireplace and certain activity zones could be demonstrated, whereby the shape, symmetry, size, orientation and internal organization of the two structures corresponded exactly to one another. The tools used for food preparation come from locally and regionally available raw materials. They could come from the same time, whereby the raw materials and equipment brought from completely different regions indicate that the initial settlement took place in Rüsselsheim A, then only in B and possibly other camps. Towards the end of the settlement, after the materials brought with them had been used up, another, now local, material was apparently used, the Keuperhornstein.

Lithic inventory

In Rüsselsheim 122 A there were 2426 stone artifacts more than one centimeter in length, which mainly consist of cuttings. Blades and lamellas make up the other half of the definable basic shapes. However, around 27% could not be assigned to a specific basic form, mostly because they were too fragmented. 262 artifacts were modified - neither in A nor in B did they exceed a length of 4 cm - and show short scratches (51%) and penknives as typological leading forms; Back stumps make up 16%, end retouching 12, burin 8 and drill 0.4% of the inventory. There are also combination tools (1.5%) and special shapes (10%). Finally, 2892 pleats and 567 pebbles were found, mainly made of sandstone , quartzite , vein quartz. A total of 3256 artifacts and rubble were found.

In B there were also projectiles and devices, a total of 1772 stone artifacts of more than one centimeter in size. More than half, however, were very fragmented, so that they could no longer be assigned to specific device forms. Here too, scratches dominated with 43%, followed by blunt-backed forms (21%), burins (19), end retouching (10) and drills (0.7) as well as special forms (6%). A total of 144 modified forms came to light, plus 2,694 pleats and 390 pebbles.

The lithic inventory is made up of a few burins and drills, but above all of scratches, blades and the characteristic arrowheads, the so-called "penknives". The processing usually managed without core preparation, as cores of a rather small size were always used. This explains why the basic shapes are mostly irregular and the transition from tees to blades or lamellas remained fluid.

In 122 A, seventeen different starting materials could be distinguished, while in B alone 76% of the material had been extracted within a radius of 20 km, i.e. were more of a local nature. The majority of the 122 A devices were made from silica slate that was available as river rubble at the camp site. But the jagged, almost crumbly sedimentary rock allowed the manufacture of small, massive tools, such as scratches. Chalcedony, on the other hand, is a material that also allowed the manufacture of more delicate and sharper devices. This material, which represented 26% of the stone artefacts, was only available in the area of Lammerspiel, 30 km away . Chalcedony was mainly used to make blades and arrowheads, similar to tertiary quartzite , which was created by the silicification of tertiary sands. This material was also used more than the silica slate, so that the four cores appear to be fully used. It represents 26% of the modified forms and 18% of the devices. These three raw materials formed the starting material for two thirds of the devices, one third consisted of silica slate. With 41 cores, it represents more than half of the existing core stones and 27% of the modified forms. Only eleven of the rubble have been worked on, the rest only show trial hits. Another six raw materials dominate the other artefacts: Quartz (in only two processed tubers), chert and diorite (124 artefacts) form the local raw material, non-local materials are flint, keratophyr (a very fine-grained and finely-layered raw material of volcanic origin and light brown-beige color, that is missing in B) and gray tuff of a porous, finely layered structure, which was only suitable for making scratches. In B, in contrast to A, where the material is missing, there is a massive Keuperhornstein (19%), which came from the Main.

In B, which is incomplete, it was possible to detect silica slate with 47 mining cores, of which only 10 were completely processed. This material also offered most of the matching - 14 matching complexes with 39 pieces. Chalcedony and tertiary quartzite were found with proportions of 11.1 and 4% of the total volume. Chalcedony only represents 5.6% of the modified forms here. Tertiary quartzite is even rarer, but its high percentage of modifications (16.7%) shows that this raw material was used in the same way as in concentration A.

Some of the stones came from the Vogelsberg or Eifel area , i.e. from about 60 km away. An indicator of the origin of the hunters is a flint that belongs to a regional “tool set” that the hunter-gatherer group carried with them during their wandering and that was not obtained on site. These devices consist of "Baltic flint", a raw material that came from the areas of the southern foothills of the glacier, which dates back to around 20,000 BC. From the Baltic Sea into the Düsseldorf area. The short scratches are also typical of the spring knife groups. The flint has nine varieties. Due to its color, opacity and bark design, variety 1 is similar to Western European Meuse gravel flint . In these respects as well as the type of fossils ( bryozoa ) and inclusions, variety 2 corresponds to the Baltic flint. A primary flint deposit in the Rhine-Main area, which may no longer be known today, can be ruled out as a place of origin due to the rubble bark that can be found on all flints, according to which the tubers must come from river gravel. However, flint does not occur in the gravel of the Main, just as little as in the Upper Rhine. Meuse gravel flint finds its southernmost distribution on the northern edge of the Eifel, while the Baltic flint occurs up to the southern border of the ice advances of the Saale glacial period , i.e. roughly along the line Düsseldorf - Soest - Erfurt.

The two tents stood in an area that was favorable for hunting strategy 13,000 years ago, because the estuary of the Main consisted of numerous side arms that created a river terrace up to 5 km wide. This widened from 400 m at the height of Kelsterbach to 5 km at the river mouth. For herds of animals this offered a system of relatively arid fords that allowed the water system to be crossed.

literature

  • Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the Federmessergruppen am Unteren Main , Diss., Cologne 2006 ( online ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The penknife site in Rüsselsheim 122 on the Lower Main (Hesse) , website of the Roman Germanic Central Museum.
  2. ^ Thomas Litt, Karl-Ernst Behre, Klaus-Dieter Meyer, Hans-Jürgen Stephan, Stefan Wansa: Ice Age and Present. Stratigraphic terms for the Quaternary of the northern German glaciation area ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / quaternary-science.publiss.net archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Quaternary Science Journal 56 (2007) 7-65.
  3. ^ Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the spring knife groups on the Lower Main , Diss., Cologne 2006, p. 9.
  4. ↑ Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the Federmessergruppen am Unteren Main , Diss., Cologne 2006, p. 5.
  5. ↑ Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the Federmessergruppen am Unteren Main , Diss., Cologne 2006, p. 77.
  6. ↑ Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the Federmessergruppen am Unteren Main , Diss., Cologne 2006, p. 11 f.
  7. ^ Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the Federmessergruppen am Unteren Main , Diss., Cologne 2006, p. 13.
  8. ↑ Stefan Loew: Rüsselsheim 122 and the Federmessergruppen am Unteren Main , Diss., Cologne 2006, p. 56 f.

Coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 29.5 ″  N , 8 ° 24 ′ 48.4 ″  E