Data

An international and interdisciplinary team is working on different proxy data for the paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the last glacial cycle as recorded by loess and similar terrestrial deposits. Our group focuses on loess sections, archaeological open air sites and cave sediments. The major topic is the environmental background of migration pathways of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) from Africa into Europe. We focus on Early Upper Palaeolithic sites in selected morphological positions....

The project B1 within the CRC 806 “Our way to Europe” focuses on the "Eastern Trajectory" of modern human migration from Africa into Europe. The Middle East, and SE Europe constitute the principal areas to be investigated. SE Europe has become a special research focus since two early Homo sapiens individuals have been found at Oase Cave in the southern Banat. The fossils lack any stratigraphic context; cultural and environmental circumstances of these findings have remained unclear. In the...

Integrated within the collaborative research centre 806 “Our way to Europe” this presentation focuses on the “eastern trajectory” of modern human migration to Europe. This route links the region with the earliest fossils of Homo sapiens sapiens (so far known) in the Middle East, Anatolia, the Balkans and the Northwestern Black Sea. The research emphasis of this project lies on the exact timing of the environmental conditions. To gain an understanding of past environmental conditions and variations, a...

The recently discovered loess section of Doroshivtsy became famous due to archeological findings of the Gravettian. The profile represents a about 9 m sequence of sandy loess, intercalated by more humic horizons. It is situated in a flat gully and at an undercut slope of the Dniester River close to the village Doroshivtsy in the south-western Ukraine. Radiocarbon dating and luminescence ages are conclusive within the expected age range of the Gravettian period (22-28 ka). The loess section is composed...

New investigations from loess and loess-like sediments in the Western Plain of Romania provide evidences for a deeper insight and connection between long loess sections of the lowlands (Semlac) and short sections from the Carpathian foothills (Romanesti and Cosava). While the long loess sections provide evidence concerning climatic and environmental change since the middle Pleistocene the short sequences from the foothills include Paleolithic sites give information especially for the interstadial of the...

Loess sequences provide important and at least a partial continuous record of Quaternary palaeoenvironmental change; some of the sequences even bury archaeological remains. In addition, loess-palaeosol sequences provide valuable information concerning environmental change and climate evolution. In this study, we compare two sections: (1) The Middle to Late Pleistocene loesspaleosol section of Semlac in western Romania (MIS 10 – 1), and (2) the sandy-loess section of Doroshivtsy in western Ukraine (MIS...

Post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence (pIRIR) dating has reactivated the use of feldspar minerals to date Pleistocene deposits. We compared pIRIR stimulation measured at 290 °C (pIRIR290) of coarse grain feldspar (100–200 μm) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) of coarse grain quartz (100–150 μm) with radiocarbon dating. The samples were taken from the lower part of the Doroshivtsy sandy loess sequence, which contains Gravettian artefact layers. The site is one of the very few sections in...

Im Fokus des Teilprojektes D1 des SFB 806 „Unser Weg nach Europa“ steht die Verbesserung des Verständnisses der Klima- und Umweltbedingungen während der ersten Ankunft des Modernen Menschen um 40.000 BP und seiner Rückkehr zwischen 18.000 und 12.000 BP im Westen Zentraleuropas. Zahlreiche Archive aus den Einzugsgebieten von Maas und Rhein ermöglichen anhand von komplexen Löss-Paläobodenabfolgen einen detaillierten Einblick in eine vielseitige Vergangenheit. Der zeitliche Fokus erstreckt sich von den...

This study describes the luminescence characteristics of quartz of Upper Pleistocene loess of the Middle Rhine area. The loess/palaeosol sequence of the Schwalbenberg near Remagen comprises a multitude of interstadial soils and soil sediments that have been dedicated to the Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3). These weak calcaric cambisols and their derivates are underlain by loess and soil sediments of MIS 4 to MIS 5 and covered by loess sediments and intercalated gelic gleysols of MIS 2. We applied...

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...