What was Germany like in prehistoric times? Exceptional archaeological and paleontological discoveries allow us to paint a picture of the landscapes and inhabitants who populated Central Europe. This research demonstrates the importance of climate change in the evolution of biodiversity.
Discovery of an elephant's corpse on the shores of Lake Schöningen.
The almost complete skeleton of an elephant
Just a few weeks ago, archaeologists from the Senckenberg Center of the University of Tübingen, in collaboration with the Office for the Protection of Historical Monuments of the Land of Lower Saxony, announced that they had found on the site of Schöningen, between Madgdeburg and Braunschweig, a throwing stick that served as a hunting weapon for the homo heidelbergensis inhabiting this region in the Paleolithic. A new discovery confirms the richness of this site:the almost complete skeleton of a Eurasian straight-tusked elephant (Paleoloxodon antiquus ) dating back 300,000 years. If other fossil traces of at least ten elephants have already been found there over the past ten years, this is the first time that so many elements in such good condition have made it possible to draw up a picture of the region, of its landscape and its inhabitants, as reported by archaeologists in the journal Archäologie in Deutschland .
The Schöningen site is a former open-pit mine, which for 25 years has delivered treasures in an extraordinary state of preservation, favored by waterlogged sediments because the site was once covered by a lake. Archaeologists have also found organic elements of flora and fauna (wood, pine cones, eggshells and insect shells) there, as well as traces of human presence, providing proof of an intense activity of Homo heidelbergensis hunting , with the discovery of the oldest complete hunting weapons in the world:ten wooden spears and at least one throwing stick.
The climate was then close to that of today, with the difference that wild animals were very numerous there, since we found the traces of a good twenty large mammals:elephants, lions, bears, smilodons (large felines, known as saber-toothed), rhinos, bison, wild horses and other ungulates. A "richness in wild animals that resembled that of present-day Africa " according to the director of excavations, Jordi Serangeli.
The skeleton of the elephant that is causing a stir today consists of its tusks, 2.3 meters long, its lower jaw, several ribs and vertebrae, the bones of three legs and the five hyoid bones (located at the above the larynx). Analysis of these bones has determined that it is most certainly a female, already old because her teeth are quite worn, which measured 3.2 meters and weighed approximately 6.8 tons, which makes her more imposing than the current African elephant. Archaeozoologist Ivo Verheijen speculates that she died of old age, as sick or old elephants often go to the edge of the water to immerse themselves, which allows them to drink more easily and alleviate the effect of gravity.
Archaeologists have identified on these bones the marks of the various attacks to which the corpse was subjected:traces of bites indicate the passage of predators; rarer, 30 flint shards found around and between the bones of the elephant, as well as two long bones that were used as tools, attest to the presence of humans, who also came to get supplies by cutting meat, skin, tendons and fat.
The almost complete skeleton of an elephant
Just a few weeks ago, archaeologists from the Senckenberg Center of the University of Tübingen, in collaboration with the Office for the Protection of Historical Monuments of the Land of Lower Saxony, announced that they had found on the site of Schöningen, between Madgdeburg and Braunschweig, a throwing stick that served as a hunting weapon for the homo heidelbergensis inhabiting this region in the Paleolithic. A new discovery confirms the richness of this site:the almost complete skeleton of a Eurasian straight-tusked elephant (Paleoloxodon antiquus ) dating back 300,000 years. If other fossil traces of at least ten elephants have already been found there over the past ten years, this is the first time that so many elements in such good condition have made it possible to draw up a picture of the region, of its landscape and its inhabitants, as reported by archaeologists in the journal Archäologie in Deutschland .
The Schöningen site is a former open-pit mine, which for 25 years has delivered treasures in an extraordinary state of preservation, favored by waterlogged sediments because the site was once covered by a lake. Archaeologists have also found organic elements of flora and fauna (wood, pine cones, eggshells and insect shells) there, as well as traces of human presence, providing proof of an intense activity of Homo heidelbergensis hunting , with the discovery of the oldest complete hunting weapons in the world:ten wooden spears and at least one throwing stick.
The climate was then close to that of today, with the difference that wild animals were very numerous there, since we found the traces of a good twenty large mammals:elephants, lions, bears, smilodons (large felines, known as saber-toothed), rhinos, bison, wild horses and other ungulates. A "richness in wild animals that resembled that of present-day Africa " according to the director of excavations, Jordi Serangeli.
The skeleton of the elephant that is causing a stir today consists of its tusks, 2.3 meters long, its lower jaw, several ribs and vertebrae, the bones of three legs and the five hyoid bones (located at the above the larynx). Analysis of these bones has determined that it is most certainly a female, already old because her teeth are quite worn, which measured 3.2 meters and weighed approximately 6.8 tons, which makes her more imposing than the current African elephant. Archaeozoologist Ivo Verheijen speculates that she died of old age, as sick or old elephants often go to the edge of the water to immerse themselves, which allows them to drink more easily and alleviate the effect of gravity.
Archaeologists have identified on these bones the marks of the various attacks to which the corpse was subjected:traces of bites indicate the passage of predators; rarer, 30 flint shards found around and between the bones of the elephant, as well as two long bones that were used as tools, attest to the presence of humans, who also came to get supplies by cutting meat, skin, tendons and fat.
For the researchers, however, this is not a hunting scene, because even if he was an accomplished hunter, Paleolithic man had no reason to put himself in danger by attacking adult animals whose males were four meters tall and weighed more than ten tons. Conclusion:it was therefore the elephants at the end of their life that represented a source of food and materials for Homo heidelbergensis, who had, in addition to the weapons already mentioned, tools for digging. He could therefore diversify his food by collecting roots, seeds, berries, fruits, nuts, fish and eggs.
A hundred meters further, at the edge of this same lake of Schöningen, the researchers also brought to light the tracks of several other elephants, indicating that a small herd made up of adults and young people skirted the shore of the lake in a water about 50cm deep. According to Flavio Altamura of Sapienza University in Rome, this is a unique find in Germany. The researchers deduce that during the Paleolithic era, elephants were part of the landscape in this region, probably living there in their thousands. Climate change, leading to a decline in biodiversity, however, got the better of them. This process is still at work, now threatening the last elephants in Africa and Asia, and perhaps humans too.
An 11 million year old turtle
Another extremely rare discovery, this time in northern Germany, where amateur paleontologists have found the remains of a leatherback turtle dating back 11 million years. The site of Groß Pampau, north of Hamburg, in a gravel pit still in operation, is a real gold mine for paleontologists. In the Miocene era (tertiary period, ranging from -23 to -5.3 million years ago), the whole of the north of the country was indeed covered by the sea, the Ur-Nordsee, which also included the Baltic Sea, Poland and Denmark and whose water temperature was much higher than today.
Geological particularity of the site:the old seabed is today only a few meters from the surface (between eight and 20 meters), while Groß Pampau is 140 km from the coast. For more than 30 years, skeletons of whales, seals and other marine animals dating back millions of years have been regularly found there. The first discovery, in 1989, is of a previously unknown ancient whale species, now named after the place:Praemegaptera pampauensis . Since then, 11 other skeletons of ancient whales and sharks have been reconstructed, some of which are on display at the Museum of Nature and the Environment in Lübeck.
The team led by Gerhard Höpfner, a longtime amateur paleontologist, has therefore just presented to the press 300 small pieces of shell and bone from this leatherback turtle (Psephophorus polygonus ) measuring at least two meters, as well as the remains of another smaller sea turtle, but also corals, stingrays, the skull of a dolphin and the fossilized bones of a petrel. Discoveries of turtles are extremely rare, because the shell was destroyed very quickly, and especially because their corpses were eaten by predatory fish; some pieces found bear the marks of these attacks. It takes a trained eye to spot these tiny debris scattered in the ground, which needs to be meticulously washed and sifted through. The company that operates the Groß Pampau gravel pit has decided to open up new strata for excavation; other spectacular discoveries are expected in the years to come.
Breton emigration to Germany
A few kilometers from Frankfurt, on the already known site of Kapellenberg, a change of perspective allowed archaeologists to identify a unique tumulus in Germany, dating from the Neolithic period, and to rethink the history of the settlement of the region. The scientific journal Spektrum der Wissenschaft reports this discovery made by the archaeologists of the Central Roman-Germanic Museum in Mainz, under the direction of Detlef Gronenborn.
The Kapellenberg ridge, a height of around 300 meters, was measured using a 3D scanner, which made it possible to determine the presence of an artificial hill now six meters high and 90 meters in diameter. The central tomb has disappeared, but archaeologists have found traces of an earlier excavation, during which the tomb may have been destroyed. Coins dating from the time of this excavation, dating back to the 1890s, give an unexpected twist to this investigation. Because ten years after this excavation were given to the curator of the Land two ax blades. For Detlef Gronenborn, there would thus be a link between the blades and the tomb, a hypothesis which allows him to estimate the date of construction of the burial mound between 4,500 and 3,750 BC.
Therefore, the researchers took a closer look at these two blades, one of which, made of jade, is of particular interest, because "it is a meticulous and high-quality professional manual work" . Its origin is most certainly French, both because this material probably comes from the Western Alps and because at present, similar funerary monuments dating from the same period only exist in the region of Carnac. It has long been known that Kapellenberg was an important Neolithic settlement center of the Michelsberg culture. It is therefore possible that the population at the time, around 900 people, emigrated from France, write the researchers. The presence of such a jewel in the Rhine-Main region, like the dimensions of the tumulus, would then be signs of a possible extension in Central Europe of the socially and politically hierarchical system which reigned in the 5th millennium BC in Brittany and in the Paris Basin.
Celebration of the centenary of paleo-ecology
The University of Bern, Switzerland, was to celebrate the centenary of research in paleoecology this year with an international symposium in June. The Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung traces the history of this discipline which analyzes the ecological processes of the past in order to predict how plants and animals will react to the changes in climate that are coming. Paleoecology is based on the examination of sediments that contain the remains of animals and plants preserved for centuries in moist soils, settling in chronological layers that can be used as a natural archive.
Pollen analysis is one of the central methods of paleoecology. This method, founded by the Swede Lennart von Post (1884 – 1951) at the beginning of the 20th century, was adopted by the Bernese botanist Walther Rytz (1882 - 1966). His appointment as Professor of Systematics and Botanical Geography at the University of Bern in 1920 marks the starting point of paleoecological research in Switzerland.
Other indicators are useful to researchers, especially other plant remains:needles and seeds, as well as other organisms preserved in the soils of marshes and lakes. Rytz was already using diatoms (single-celled microalgae) as indicators in his studies; later Bernese researchers also included fungal spores, water fleas and chironomids (mosquito-like diptera), but it was only from the 1980s that international researchers began to use the general spectrum of biological diversity as a source of information. Thanks to these indicators, it is now possible to reconstruct past environmental factors such as nutrient content, water temperature or lake pH.
Paleo-ecology also takes into account the influence of Man on his environment, such as an intensive agricultural practice, which is expressed through the use of burning, increased soil erosion and transformation of species composition. The Bern researchers now plan to go back to the time of the last interglacial era, around 125,000 years ago, in order to find indications of the original state of the vegetation, before the installation of humans. This could help them determine what measures are needed to protect nature from future climatic conditions.