Der Fundplatz „Weldermühle“ (Landkreis Landsberg a. Lech) und seine Bedeutung für die Geschichte des Jungneolithikums im westbayerischen Alpenvorland

Abstract

The surface find site ‚Weldermühle‘, situated in the district ‚Landsberg a. Lech‘ between Lech and Wertach, has yielded stone artefacts as well as chronologically addressable pottery. The pottery can be placed in an older classical section of the Münchshöfen culture around 4400 BC. Shards of a ‚Knickwandbecher‘ with ‚Schulterbandverzierung‘ give additionally hints to relationships in western directions at this time. Two specific stone implements – a notched dagger made of Lower Bavarian flat chert and a rock axe with an oblique cutting edge, have both the best parallels in inventories of the ‚Pollinger Gruppe‘. This indicates a settlement of the site in a younger phase between ca. 4100 and 3900 B.C. Apart from the Late Neolithic occupation, there are also indications of a Bronze Age and possibly Iron Age settlement phase via further pottery sherds.
The site is located at the border between the southernmost loess distribution with fertile brown earth soils and the young moraine area. It belongs to the most southern Late Neolithic settlement sites in the Alpine foothills.
The focus of the present paper is on the stone artefacts and their microscopic examination to determine the origin of the flint raw materials by Jehanne Affolter. The areas of origin are located between 33 and 285 km as the crow flies and give evidence of the vastness of social relations and a high mobility of at least a part of the settlers of Weldermühle.
The site presented here is located at the southern edge of the main distribution of previously known Late Neolithic settlements in Bavaria. Nevertheless, a review of the pollen analyses of the region published in recent decades shows that even in these areas, which today appear to be less suitable for agriculture, there are clear indications of human cultivation.
Simultaneously with the younger Neolithic phase of ‚Weldermühle‘, is the cultural layer 1 of Degersee 1,
a pile-dwelling settlement north of Lake Constance. The layer provide a lithic assemblages, which has been examined by Jehanne Affolter in the same way. The comparison indicates that during the older Late Neolithic south of the Danube, widely spread communication networks can be expected, which also had links to the area south of the Alps.

• Alpine foothills
• Bavaria
• chronology
• gis
• late neolithic
• lithic artefacts
• lithic raw material
• loess
• palynology
• pottery

Resources

• Windberg 2018_Schoen-et-al.pdf

Bibliography

Schön, W., Affolter, J., Gehlen, B., Meixner, D. (2020): Der Fundplatz „Weldermühle“ (Landkreis Landsberg a. Lech) und seine Bedeutung für die Geschichte des Jungneolithikums im westbayerischen Alpenvorland. Neue Materialien des Bayerischen Neolithikums 3. Tagung im Kloster Windberg vom 16. bis 18. November 2018, Vol. 3, Würzburg