B1: Pioneers of the North: Transitions and Transformations in Northern Europe Evidenced by High-Resolution Data Sets

At Ahrenshöft 74, two overlying archaeological horizons that yielded material of an early settlement phase of Northern Germany after the last glacial maximum. These artefacts were attributed to the so-called Hamburgian and are approximately 14,450 years old. The different making of the lithic artefacts allows a distinction of two different groups: the classic Hamburgian and the Havelte Group. The change from classic Hamburgian to the Havelte group is a transformation that will be studied in project B1.

This project concentrates on cultural and socio-economic transformations in mobile hunter-gatherer groups during their colonisation of Northern Europe in the Final Palaeolithic period, as they were confronted with different and changing environmental conditions. To this end, well-preserved sites from Northern Germany and Scandinavia are studied with regard to the archaeological remains and connected environmental records. Thus, the dynamics of technological developments, subsistence strategies, mobility patterns and local and regional interaction networks will be examined and contextualised with changes in the environment.

Five regions with well-known sites were selected to be studied in more detail and / or for which older results shall be synthesised with new data and results during the first phase of the CRC. In addition, we are searching for further find regions that contain high-resolution archives based on the palaeo-site database of Schleswig-Holstein made at the ZBSA in cooperation with the ALSH.