Rhine-Maas-Scheldt Mesolithic

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The Rhine-Maas-Schelde-Mesolithic (RMS-Mesolithic) belonged to since about 7400 BC. BC also included the Rhineland and parts of Westphalia for more than two millennia . On the basis of the unmistakable microliths , the RMS Mesolithic can be narrowed down to an area of ​​around 150,000 km² between the Seine in the south, the IJsselmeer in the north, the Atlantic in the west and the Rhine - Moselle course as far as the Westphalian Bay . In the middle of the 8th millennium. v. There were changes in the material culture . New microlithic arrow reinforcements appeared with surface-retouched mistletoe-leaf and other leaf-shaped tips as well as two-dimensionally worked triangles, which are considered the leading forms of the RMS Mesolithic. The reasons for this development are incomprehensible, but it must have been motifs that went beyond the purely functional.

Of the 324 known sites (as of 2001), 47 (14%) are in western Germany. At present, there is a main focus of distribution along the Meuse , from where the RMS stations are spreading into the Rhineland. The sources paint the picture of a hunter-gatherer population who lived in the plains and low mountain ranges up to the end of the Mesolithic and whose living quarters show the traditional structures. They mainly used Belgian Wommersom quartzite to produce the stone tools . The usual large mammals were part of the hunted prey: aurochs , deer , roe deer and wild boar . There was a bone and antler industry that included jewelry made from pierced shells and teeth. For specific purposes, pits were dug in the residential areas. The population was familiar with cremation and body burials and equipped the body graves with additions, which suggests ideas of the afterlife.

As in the entire RMS field are also found in North Rhine-Westphalia evidence for the frühmesolithische stage RMS-A, (z. B. Grefrath On the Bend I, holders II Stolberg -Brockenberg Teveren and 115), as well as the RMS level spätmesolithische -B, (e.g. Erkelenz 2, Gocher Berg, Goch-Kessel, Haltern I, Korschenbroich, Ueddinger Broich and Lüxheim).

With the beginning of the Late Mesolithic, the RMS Mesolithic followed the European trend towards the production of regular blades and trapezoidal microliths. In the course of a 200-300-year transition phase, trapezoids and trapezoidal tips replaced the microlithic tips, segments and triangles. The area-retouched leaf-shaped tips and triangles, however, were retained without restriction, which identifies them as an elementary part of the RMS culture. Shortly before the middle of the 6th millennium, the "Danubian tip" emerged in the RMS area, from which a few centuries later the asymmetrical arrowhead of the ribbon ceramics emerged . With the “Danubian peaks” and the microliths, which are still surface retouched, the RMS Mesolithic went into the second half of the 6th millennium. Radiocarbon dates from the last quarter of the millennium and finds of mistletoe leaf tips in ribbon ceramic pits prove its existence up to the more recent ribbon ceramic.

Since about 5500 BC The RMS region was under the influence of the Neolithic cultures. This was not without consequences, because from 5300 the RMS population began producing their own ceramics - Limburg goods . Since then it has been understood as a Limburg group . Evidence of the process is the association of surface retouched microliths and Limburg ceramics as well as the congruent distribution of the RMS Mesolithic and Limburg ware, which has been proven on Belgian sites. That the development also took place in the Rhineland and parts of Westphalia is shown e.g. B. the Limburg sites Köln-Lindenthal, Langweiler 8, Laurenzberg 7, Bochum-Hiltrop and Xanten.

The economic basis on which the population of the RMS region existed in the last centuries of the 6th millennium is largely unclear, even if Stone Age parallel societies are proven. Until the complete neolithization of the RMS area, it can be assumed that different economic systems will coexist.

literature

  • Martin Heinen: The Rhine-Meuse-Schelde Culture in Western Europe . In: Martin Street, Michael Baales, Erwin Cziesla, Sönke Hartz, Martin Heinen, Olaf Jöris, Ingrid Koch, Clemens Pasda, Thomas Terberger, Jürgen Vollbrecht: Final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Research in Reunified Germany . Journal of World Prehistory 15, 4, 2001, pp. 400-403.
  • Martin Heinen: The Rhine-Meuse-Schelde Culture in Western Europe. Distribution, chronology and development . In: Claus-Joachim Kind (Ed.): After the Ice Age. Material booklets for archeology in Baden-Württemberg, 78, 2006, pp. 75–86.