Refined stratigraphy of loess-paleosol-sequences from the Schwalbenberg near Remagen (Middle Rhine valley, Germany) -paleoenvironmental and archeological implications
Abstract
Loess-paleosol-sequences (LPS) are outstanding terrestrial archives of palaeo-environmental changes and connected to habitats for past human populations also elucidate the nature of interactions between people and their environment. In the frame of the TerraClime-Project, extensive fieldwork has been carried out along a transect from the interfluve position to the foot slope at the Schwalbenberg site near Remagen (Middle Rhine valley, Germany) combining geophysical exploration (electrical resistivity tomography, seismics) with Direct Push borehole geophysical measurements and sediment coring. Multi-proxy analyses are used to detect signals of palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic changes and enable the integration of formerly investigated Schwalbenberg sections, namely a c. 6 m thick profile where an archaeological horizon testifies to Palaeolithic occupation in thearea (App et al., 1995) and the c. 13 m thick Schwalbenberg II profile section (e.g. Schirmer, 2012). A new Schwalbenberg age model is based on quartz luminescence and radiocarbon ages from fossil earthworm calcite granules and tephrachronology. Based onour results we are able to demonstrate that investigated novel Loess-Palaeosol-Sequences from the Schwalbenberg area yield the thickest and most comprehensive terrestrial record of environmental change in Western and Central Europe for the entire Last Glacial Cycle. Furthermore, the combination of direct sensing techniques and geophysical measurements allows for accurate mapping of stratigraphic marker horizons (e.g. soil horizons, tephra layers), layer boundaries (e.g. transition from loess deposits to fluvial and colluvial sediments) and erosional events along the geomorphological transect. The Schwalbenberg chronology refines age estimates established earlier for the archaeological horizon (App et al., 1995; Schirmer 2012). The small assemblage, which is interpreted to represent the techno-typological transition between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, dates to around 33.500 cal BP, and therefore corresponds to the very beginning of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic ‘Gravettian’ period in Central Europe (cf. Jöris et al., 2010). Early Upper Palaeolithic Aurignacian sites in the wider vicinity predate the Schwalbenberg site by several millennia. Against the background of the Schwalbenberg archaeological site, new light is shed on the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Central Europe, indicating that the underlying socio-cultural changes were far more complex than previously thought.
Bibliography
Fischer, P., Jöris, O., Vött, A., Fitzsimmons, K., Vinnepand, M., Hambach, U., Prud’homme, C., Schulte, P., Lehmkuhl, F., Schirmer, W. (2019): Refined stratigraphy of loess-paleosol-sequences from the Schwalbenberg near Remagen (Middle Rhine valley, Germany) -paleoenvironmental and archeological implications. International Workshop Loess and Archeology, 27-29 November 2019, Aachen, Germany, DOI: 10.18154/RWTH-2019-10423
| author | Fischer, P. and Jöris, O. and Vött, A. and Fitzsimmons, K. and Vinnepand, M. and Hambach, U. and Prud’homme, C. and Schulte, P. and Lehmkuhl, F. and Schirmer, W. |
|---|---|
| doi | 10.18154/RWTH-2019-10423 |
| key | P.Fischer2019 |
| organization | International Workshop Loess and Archeology, 27-29 November 2019, Aachen, Germany |
| type | presentation |
| year | 2019 |