Data

Loess sequences provide important and at least a partial continuous record of Quaternary palaeoenvironmental change. In addition, loess-palaeosol sequences provide valuable information concerning environmental change and climate evolution. It is customary to reconstruct such changes by means of grain sizes ratios. In this study, we calculated an site-specific grain size (GS) ratio (Schulte et al. in review) and compare this ratio with the common U-ratio (Vandenberghe et al.1985) and, in addition, with...

The Project B1 within the CRC 806 “Our way to Europe” is focused on the "Eastern Trajectory" of modern human migration from Africa into Europe. The Middle East, Anatolia, Balkans and Southeastern Europe constitute the principal areas to be investigated. Within these larger regions key areas were selected for combined archaeological and geoarchaeological research, fieldwork having delivered case studies for initial Modern Human adaptational systems, yet to be fully...

This contribution focuses on two PhD projects, which are integrated within the collaborative research centre 806 “Our way to Europe” at the University of Cologne and the RWTH Aachen University (Germany). The main research focus is the migration of anatomical modern human (AMH) to Europe. We concentrate on the paleoenvironmental conditions on the route through southeastern Europe. This links the region with the earliest fossils of Homo sapiens sapiens (so far known) in the Middle East, Anatolia, the...

Upper Pleistocene sediments at Wadi Sabra (Ma’an District, Jordan) were geoarcheologically investigated from 2008–2010. The Wadi Sabra valley system, situated east of the Dead Sea Rift and south of the ancient Nabataean capital of Petra, has preserved sedimentary deposits which are connected with several Upper Paleolithic sites. First results from sedimentological and geochemical analysis supported by archeological and radiometric dating provide evidence of fluvial and fluvio-eolian sedimentation during...

In the past several years there has been increasing interest in a short interval of abrupt climate change known to have occurred towards the end of the 7th millennium calBC, most often referred to as the 8.2 ka calBP event. Growing numbers of studies have discussed the role of this interval in coincident Neolithic culture change in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, albeit lacking a true comprehension of 1) the superordinate climate mechanism, and 2) further-reaching implications, e.g. the early...

Changes in ecosystems and land use frequently went along with regional burning events, but how fires accompanied human development, the onset of agriculture and changes in climate has eluded researchers. I hypothesised that information on past burning events may be reconstructed from the geochemical analyses of black carbon (BC), the residue of incomplete combustion. To test this hypothesis, it was the aim of my theses i) to elucidate the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of BC produced by...

Previous geochronological and archaeological studies on the rock shelter Jarama VI suggested a late survival of Neanderthals in central Iberia and the presence of lithic assemblages of Early Upper Paleolithic affinity. New data on granulometry, mineralogical composition, geochemical fingerprints and micromorphology of the sequence corroborate the previous notion that the archaeological units JVI.2.1 to JVI.2.3 are slackwater deposits of superfloods, which did not experience significant post-depositional...

The Paleolithic sites Romanesti and Cosava, situated at the foothills of the Banat Mountains in Romania, provide an important testament of life of the first European modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) during the Middle Pleniglacial. Even though these sites have been extensively excavated, little is known about the site formation of related loess-like sediments and soils. First luminescence data at the two investigated sections confirm sediments from the penultimate glacial period to the Holocene. ...

A detailed tephrostratigraphic record, which dates back to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5b (ca. 91 kyr), has been established from a 17.76 m long core (Co1215) from Lake Prespa (Macedonia, Albania and Greece). A total of eleven tephra and cryptotephra layers (PT0915-1 to PT0915-11) were identified, using XRF scanning, magnetic susceptibility measurements, and macro- and microscopic inspection of the sediments. The major element composition of glass shards and/or micro-pumice fragments indicates that the...

At Wadi Sabra (SW Jordan) human occupation dates back to the Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic. Although there is stratigraphic correlation based on archaeological finds of Ahmarian origin, numerical age estimates are lacking. We applied single-aliquot optical dating of coarse grained quartz of wadi deposits and investigated the luminescence properties in detail to achieve more accurate age information about the time of human occupation. Weak luminescence signals and scattered dose distributions characterise...

Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of heated silex artefacts represents an important chronometric tool for Middle to Upper Paleolithic archeological contexts. Since the firing of these lithics can legitimately be attributed to human agency, this method provides direct age estimates of the occupation of a site. However, in relation to other dating methods, the precision of TL dates is comparatively low, and the often observed “overdispersion” in ages of obviously syndepositional finds indicates additional...

Luminescence dating is a leading technique for a large spectrum of Quaternary dating applications. Since the development of automated reader systems, handling great amounts of samples has become possible. A large quantity of data is produced in a short time and a detailed check of every single curve is often impractical. Therefore, it is important to be confident in excluding any kind of unwanted signal contributions, such as those from sample carriers. For commonly used types of steel and aluminium...