Interpreting gaps: A geoarchaeological point of view on the Gravettian record of Ach and Lone valleys (Swabian Jura, SW Germany)

Barbieri, Alvise; Bachofer, Felix; Schmaltz, Elmar; Leven, Carsten; Conard, Nicholas J.; Miller, Christopher E.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2021.105335

Cited by 13 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Hohle Fels has a long history of geoarchaeological analysis (Goldberg et al 2003;Schiegl et al 2003;Barbieri et al 2018Barbieri et al , 2021, which saw the application of a number of different analytical techniques. In addition to the previously mentioned study of combustion features (Schiegl et al 2003;, Goldberg and Miller focused on the depositional and post-depositional processes acting at the site.…”

Section: Previous Geoarchaeological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This observation led to the work of Barbieri and colleagues. Across the Pleistocene and Holocene, the land formation model (Barbieri et al 2018(Barbieri et al , 2021 in the Ach valley sees phases of soil formation, hillslope denudation, river valley incision and floodplain aggradation. The alternation of these phases, especially those related to the Last Glacial Maximum, contributed to the formation of the archaeological deposits in the valley floor but also resulted in the erosion of the hillslopes and also some of the deposits contained within the cave.…”

Section: Previous Geoarchaeological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Burning, dumping, and site use during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic at Hohle Fels Cave, SW Germany

Marcazzan

Miller

Conard

2022

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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Dumped deposits are a valuable source of information for inferring past behaviour. They provide insights into site maintenance, social organization and settlement dynamics. Hohle Fels Cave in SW Germany offers a unique opportunity to investigate the importance of dumping and site maintenance during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic of the Swabian Jura. In this paper, we analyse anthropogenic deposits at Hohle Fels employing micromorphology and fabric analysis in order to reconstruct their formation and understand the human behaviours behind their accumulation. Our study indicates that dumping residues from combustion features in the interior of Hohle Fels Cave has a long history extending back to Neanderthal occupation at the site during the Middle Palaeolithic. Despite some reworking via down-slope movement, most of the features demonstrate that the site’s inhabitants dumped burnt material, which was previously the fuel for domestic hearths, in specific locations within the cave. The intentionality of the action and the characteristics of the features provide important information for reconstructing the mode and spatial organization of occupations at the site. The combustion features from the Middle Palaeolithic allow us to reassess the hypothesis that Neanderthals’ use of the site was less intense and documented a lesser degree of spatial patterning than subsequent Upper Palaeolithic occupations. This research also provides insight for examining the regional variability of pyrotechnology and site maintenance during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic.

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Section: Previous Geoarchaeological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Geoarchaeological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Burning, dumping, and site use during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic at Hohle Fels Cave, SW Germany

Marcazzan

Miller

Conard

2022

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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“…Advances in digital geoarcheology that take advantage of air‐ and satellite‐based remote sensing (Siart et al ., 2018), soil mapping (Bertran et al ., 2021) and GIS‐based predictive modeling are such approaches (Blundell, 2020) that may contribute to our understanding of marginal zones of loess distribution which have hitherto received archeological little attention. In areas where loess mantles are thin, advances in shallow ground‐based remote sensing techniques such as geomagnetics and ground‐penetrating radar are uniquely positioned to identify new sites and map local Pleistocene landscapes (Urban et al ., 2019; Barbieri et al ., 2021). Such methods are seldom employed in European Pleistocene archeology, but the properties of loess make such thin exposures ideal for identifying distributions of past hearths, pits, stone and bone arrangements indicative of other site ‘furniture’.…”

Section: Gathering Dust: New Directions For Quaternary Loess and The Paleolithicmentioning

confidence: 99%

The past in dust: current trends and future directions in Pleistocene geoarcheology of European loess

Chu

Nett

2021

J Quaternary Science

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Loess is a main archive of Pleistocene landscapes and environments and therefore has an important connection to the preservation and interpretation of Paleolithic sites. In Europe, anthropogenic sites have been found in loess because of past local occupation. At one extreme, sites are well preserved with minimal disturbance often accompanied by embedded proxies to estimate ecological parameters. On the other hand, loess deposits have undergone post‐depositional alterations such as weathering, pedogenesis or bioturbation due to changing environmental conditions or other disturbances that obscure anthropogenic sites. We outline the current state of research and connections between Paleolithic archeology and loess research while introducing a series of subsequent regional case studies as part of a special issue. We also make recommendations for future work to incorporate a wider variety of methods to create more robust inferences on hominin and environmental evolution and their connections.

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“…Erosion influenced the preservation of archaeological deposits in the transition from the late Aurignacian to the Gravettian (Goldberg et al, 2003(Goldberg et al, , 2019Miller, 2015), while erosive processes removing Gravettian material were also recorded in Hohlenstein-Stadel in the Lone Valley (Barbieri & Miller, 2019;Hornauer-Jahnke, 2019). A different approach combining site-and landscape-scale analyses was followed by Barbieri et al (2018Barbieri et al ( , 2021, who demonstrated that cave erosion is triggered by regional landscape changes for both the Ach and Lone valleys. In this regard, Barbieri et al (2018Barbieri et al ( , 2021 documented increased cave erosion in the Lone Valley during the Gravettian, calling into question the notion of a decreased human presence in the Lone, in comparison to the Ach, based on lower find densities (Conard et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A different approach combining site-and landscape-scale analyses was followed by Barbieri et al (2018Barbieri et al ( , 2021, who demonstrated that cave erosion is triggered by regional landscape changes for both the Ach and Lone valleys. In this regard, Barbieri et al (2018Barbieri et al ( , 2021 documented increased cave erosion in the Lone Valley during the Gravettian, calling into question the notion of a decreased human presence in the Lone, in comparison to the Ach, based on lower find densities (Conard et al, 2012). According to these findings, we hypothesize that geogenic processes might have a greater impact on the distribution of Paleolithic occupation evidence in the valleys of the Swabian Jura than previously assumed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Formation Processes to Explore Low-Density Sites and Settlement Patterns: A Case Study from the Swabian Jura

Varis

Miller²,

Toniato³

et al. 2022

J Paleo Arch

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Paleolithic archaeologists often rely on cave and rockshelter sites with rich occupation levels to explore hominin behavior and settlement patterns. However, a closer look into regional occupation data may reveal an uneven distribution of sites and the presence of occupational hiatuses or low-density occupation horizons that often remain understudied. In contrast to this trend, this paper focuses on low-density occupation data to explore regional settlement patterns, using the rich and well-studied Paleolithic record of the Swabian Jura, Germany, as a case study. In this regard, we employ a geoarchaeological approach based on micromorphology to investigate the formation processes of two low-density occupation sites, Schafstall II and Fetzershaldenhöhle, and compare their formation history with the geogenic sequence from Lindenhöhle. We demonstrate that the investigated sites have comparable formation processes, despite their differences in chronology and context. We argue that humans used Schafstall II and Fetzershaldenhöhle for short-term activities, while the sites mostly served as carnivore activity areas, emphasizing the importance of fauna in the accumulation of thick sedimentary sequences. In addition, our findings corroborate the regional climatic record and provide novel insights into the geomorphological history of the less studied Lauchert Valley, where Schafstall II is located. By comparing our results with data from intensively occupied caves in the Swabian Jura, we provide broader implications for the settlement patterns of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. We conclude with methodological suggestions for investigating sites in hunter-gatherer contexts combining a distributional and a site-specific approach.

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Interpreting gaps: A geoarchaeological point of view on the Gravettian record of Ach and Lone valleys (Swabian Jura, SW Germany)

Cited by 13 publications

References 35 publications

Burning, dumping, and site use during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic at Hohle Fels Cave, SW Germany

Burning, dumping, and site use during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic at Hohle Fels Cave, SW Germany

The past in dust: current trends and future directions in Pleistocene geoarcheology of European loess

Using Formation Processes to Explore Low-Density Sites and Settlement Patterns: A Case Study from the Swabian Jura

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