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

Fig. 1. 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.

Fig. 2. 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.

Research Activities 2017-2019

Publications:

Arponen, V.P.J., Dörfler, W., Feeser, I., Grimm, S., Groß, D., Hinz, M., Knitter, D., Müller-Scheesel, N., Ott, K., Ribeiro, A. 2019. Environmental determinism and archaeology: Understanding and evaluating determinism in research design. Archaeological Dialogues 26 (1), 1-9. DOI 

Arponen, V.P.J., Dörfler, W., Feeser, I., Grimm, S., Groß, D., Hinz, M., Knitter, D., Müller-Scheesel, N., Ott, K., Ribeiro, A. 2019. Two cultures in the times of interdisciplinary archaeology. A response to commentators. Archaeological Dialogues 26 (1), 19-24. DOI

Arponen, V.P.J., Grimm, S., Käppel, L., Ott, K., Thalheim, B., Kropp, Y., Kittig, K., Brinkmann, J., Ribeiro, A. 2019. Between natural and human sciences: On the role and character of theory in socio-environmental archeology. The Holocene 29 (10). Fuchs, K., Kirleis, W., Müller, J. (Guest eds.) Special Issue: Scales of Transformation – Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies, 1671-1676. DOI

Brozio, J.P., Dörfler, D., Eriksen, B.V., Grimm, S., Groß, D., Hartz, S., Kirleis, W., Kneisel, J., Lübke. H., Meadows, J., Müller, J., Schmölcke, U. 2016. TransformationsDimensionen – Wildbeuter, Bodenbauer und frühe Metallurgen im Fokus – Sonderforschungsbereich 1266. Ein neues Großprojekt der Uni Kiel. Archäologische Nachrichten aus Schleswig-Holstein  2016 (22), 18-21.

Eriksen, B.V., Grimm, S.B., Krüger, S. 2017. Pioneers of the North: Transitions and Transformations in Northern Europe evidenced by High-Resolution Datasets (c. 15,000-9,500 BCE). Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavischer Archäologie Jahresbericht 2016, 80-81.

Grimm, S.B., Groß, D., Gerken, K., Weber, M.-J. (in press). On the onset of the Early Mesolithic on the North German Plain, in: Zander, A., Gehlen, B. (eds.). From the Early Preboreal to the Subboreal period - Current Mesolithic research in Europe, Studies in honour of Bernhard Gramsch on his 85th birthday. Kerpen-Loogh: Welt und Erde Verlag.

Groß, D., Piezonka, H., Corradini, E., Schmölcke, U., Zanon, M., Dörfler, W., Dreibrodt, S., Feeser, I., Krüger, S., Lübke, H., Panning, D., Wilken, D. 2019. Adaptations and transformations of hunter-gatherers in forest environments: New archaeological and anthropological insights. The Holocene 29 (10). Fuchs, K., Kirleis, W., Müller, J. (Guest eds.) Special Issue: Scales of Transformation – Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies, 1531-1544. DOI

Hamer, W., Knitter, D., Grimm, S.B., Serbe, B., Eriksen, B.V., Nakoinz, O., Duttmann, R. 2019. Location Modeling of Final Palaeolithic Sites in Northern Germany. Geosciences 9 (10), 430. DOI

Krüger, S., Damrath, M. 2019. In search for the Bølling-Oscillation —  a new high resolution pollenrecord from the locus classicus Lake Bølling, Denmark. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 1-23. DOI 

Zander, A., Gehlen, B., Amkreutz, L., Andersen, S., Bjørnevad, M., Briel, M., Conneller, C., Craig, O., Croft, S., Czekaj-Zastawny, A., Cziesla, E., Divišová, M., Eckmeier, E., Eigner, J., Eriksen, B.V., Faasch, F., Fischer, B., French, C., Geerts, R., Gerken, K., Goldhammer, J., Gray Jones, A., Grimm, S., Groß, D., Hartz, S., Heinen, M., Heron, C., Hofmann, D., Ismail-Weber, M., Jensen, T., Kabaciński, J., Knight, B., Kotula, A., Krahn, C., Krüger, S., Little, A., Lübke, H., Lucquin, A., Mahlstedt, S., Meadows, J., Meyer, A.-K., Milner, N., Nash, B., Needham, A., Niekus, M., Noack, E., Oras, E., Orschiedt, J., Brinch Petersen, E., Poelmann, T., Pomstra, D., Posch, C., Pratsch, S., Prekop, F., Řezáč, M., Richter, T., Robson, H., Roth, G., Rowley, C., Schmölcke, U., Schneid, N., Schön, W., Schulting, R., Smit, B., Sørensen, M., Spies, B., Stäuble, H., Steele, V., Taylor, B., Thielen, L., Weber, M.-J., Wild, M., Wolters, S. 2017. Conference report: The 26th Annual Meeting of the German Mesolithic Workgroup, 10-12 March 2017 Wuppertal. Archäologische Informationen 40, Early View, 1-22.