Late Paleolithic site in Bad Breisig

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The late Paleolithic site in Bad Breisig is the name given to a concentration of paleolithic finds in a gravel wall near Bad Breisig.

Research history

In 1999 the geologist and biologist Georg Waldmann discovered a concentration of archaeological finds in a gravel pit wall on the Golden Mile north of Bad Breisig. Due to typical artifacts , the finds are attributed to the late Paleolithic penknife groups . About half of the found concentration with a central fireplace was excavated in autumn 2000 and spring 2001 by the Paleolithic Research Department of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz on behalf of the Archaeological Monument Preservation (today: General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate), Koblenz Office. In addition to the archaeological findings , the site yielded thousands of stone artifacts, some mostly burned animal bones and a few charcoals. The location of the find was evaluated in a master’s thesis prepared at the Institute for Prehistory and Early History at the University of Cologne under the supervision of Gerhard Bosinski in close cooperation with the Paleolithic Research Department of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum at Monrepos Castle (today: Monrepos ), where the finds up to are archived today.

Location, profile and time position

The archaeological site is on the Schönbrunn low terrace of the Rhine (NT2) immediately to the west of an approximately 10 m deep step to today's Rhine floodplain . The finds were embedded in a high-tide clay that was formed above the late Allerød Age deposits of the Laacher See volcano. These volcanic deposits provided additional insights into the course of the late Pleistocene eruption of the Laacher See volcano (around 11,000 BC). Due to the numerous pumice grains of the Laacher See volcano, the formation of the Ebingen low terrace (NT3), which is no longer preserved in the area of ​​the find, is set to occur immediately after the eruption. Thus, the formation of the flood loam can be placed in the transition area of ​​the Allerød to the Younger Dryas . The temporal position of human settlement is placed in the last section of the Allerød warm phase (Greenlandic Interstadial 1a) due to the stratigraphic location of the finds, as well as the warm-time fauna and the slight dominance of conifers among the species-specific charcoals . Of three 14C dates , only one falls in the transition area from Allerød to Younger Dryas , the other two samples provided significantly more recent results, but are to be regarded as problematic.

Archaeological results

From the time after the volcanic eruption, apart from the site near Bad Breisig, no other late Paleolithic finds from the Middle Rhine region are known, but they do from the time immediately before the volcanic eruption. The finds from Bad Breisig do not reveal any significant changes to the legacies of these well-known find complexes of the Federmesser groups . The facility (close concentration of finds around a fireplace) and use of the site (work place, food preparation ) as well as the use of raw materials ( pine wood as fuel, mainly red deer , occasionally deer as a source of food, especially tertiary quartzite , less often flint for making stone utensils ) and the Origin of the stone materials (local to regional, more rarely from at least 100 km away, then usually from the northwest) in Bad Breisig resemble the same behavior from the time before the volcanic eruption. An indication of the later stage of development of the finds are individual laterally and end retouched stone points and knives, which also appear in France during the late Allerød and in the Younger Dryas become a key type (the so-called Malauria points). The late Paleolithic site of Bad Breisig thus proves the rapid return and resumption of the habitual behavior patterns of late Ice Age hunters and gatherers in the Middle Rhine region after the devastating natural disaster of the Laacher See volcanic eruption .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c W. Schirmer: The Golden Mile. In: W. Schirmer (Ed.): Rheingeschichte between Mosel and Maas. (= Deuqua guide. 1). German Quaternary Association, Hanover, 1990, ISBN 3-926963-04-2 , pp. 94-98. (Excursions of the 25th scientific conference of the German Quaternary Association (DEUQUA), September 9-16, 1990, Düsseldorf)
  2. ^ A b G. Waldmann, O. Jöris, M. Baales: After the flood. A late Allerød Age tip site near Bad Breisig. In: Archaeological correspondence sheet. 31, 2001, pp. 173-184.
  3. ↑ a b c M. Baales, O. Jöris: Between North and South. A late Allerød Age tip site near Bad Breisig, Kr.Ahrweiler (Middle Rhine, Rhineland-Palatinate). In: The customer. NF 52, 2001, pp. 275-292.
  4. ↑ a b c S. B. Grimm: A late Allerødzeitlicher discovery site near Bad Breisig, Ahrweiler district. In: Reports on archeology on the Middle Rhine and Moselle. 9, 2004, pp. 11-32.
  5. Jump up ↑ M. Baales, O. Jöris, M. Street, F. Bittmann, B. Weninger, J. Wiethold: Impact of the Late Glacial Eruption of the Laacher See Volcano, Central Rhineland, Germany. In: Quaternary Research. 58, 2002, pp. 273-288.
  6. ↑ JJ Lowe, SO Rasmussen, S. Björck, WZ Hoek, JP Steffensen, MJC Walker, ZC Yu, INTIMATE Group: Synchronization of palaeoenvironmental events in the North Atlantic region during the Last Termination: a revised protocol recommended by the INTIMATE group. In: Quaternary Science Reviews. 27, 2008, pp. 6-17.
  7. ↑ M. Baales: The late Paleolithic site Kettig. Investigations into the settlement archeology of the Federmesser groups on the Middle Rhine. (= Monograph of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum. 51). Publishing house of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-88467-072-7 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 31 '48.4 "  N , 7 ° 17' 7.4"  E