Journal
JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
Volume 89, Issue -, Pages 71-91Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.07.008
Keywords
Geoarchaeology; Lower Paleolithic; Site formation; Lake sites
Categories
Funding
- DFG [CO 226/22-1]
- Niedersachsische Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege (NLD)
- Niedersachsisches Ministerium fur Wissenschaft und Kultur (MWK)
- Athene program
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Geoarchaeological research at the Middle Pleistocene site of Schoningen 13 II-4, often referred to as the Speerhorizont, has focused on describing and evaluating the depositional contexts of the well-known wooden spears, butchered horses, and stone tools. These finds were, recovered from the transitional contact between a lacustrine marl and an overlying organic mud, originally thought to be a peat that accumulated in place under variable moisture conditions. The original excavators proposed that hominin activity, including hunting and butchery, occurred on a dry lake shore and was followed by a rapid sedimentation of organic deposits that embedded and preserved the artifacts. Our geoarchaeological analysis challenges this model. Here, we present evidence that the sediments of Schoningen 13 II-4 were deposited in a constantly submerged area of a paleolake. Although we cannot exclude the possibility that the artifacts were deposited during a short, extreme drying event, there are no sedimentary features indicative of surface exposure in the sediments. Accordingly, this paper explores three main alternative models of site formation: anthropogenic disposal of materials into the lake, a geological relocation of the artifacts, and hunting or caching on lake-ice. These models have different behavioral ramifications concerning hominin knowledge and exploitation of the landscape and their subsistence strategies. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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