Adaptive Responses to the End of the Ice Age in Southern Germany

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

With the support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Michael Jochim and students from the University of California, Santa Barbara will carry out a two-year program of archaeological survey and excavations in southern Germany. The goal of this work is to gain a deeper understanding of how populations in the region coped with and adjusted to the dramatic environmental changes at the end of the last ice age by testing three models of cultural change. With the rapid environmental warming that occurred ca. 12,000 - 10,000 years ago, the environment underwent enormous changes in vegetation and animal life, forcing groups of hunter-gatherers to alter their subsistence, patterns of settlement, and social organization. The general pattern of these adjustments is known, but various regions of Europe show considerable differences in the timing and exact nature of these adjustments. Southern Germany, just north of the Alps, is an area where the environmental changes were most drastic, undergoing a transformation from ice sheets and open tundra to closed, mixed forests within a few thousand years. The current archaeological record from this area, however, does not allow for a detailed examination of the cultural changes that occurred in response. This project will build upon earlier research and address the deficiencies in current knowledge by 1) locating and excavating new sites that provide preservation of bone and wooden artifacts in addition to stone tools and 2) enlarging the sample of artifacts from surface sites in a variety of different locations by fieldwalking. The project will focus on two formerly large lakes (the Federsee and Pfrunger Ried) and their hinterlands where considerable background research has already been carried out. The immediate goal of this research is to obtain greater understanding of the behavioral adjustments to the end of the ice age in this region. In a broader sense, this research provides a case study for investigating cultural changes elsewhere during this period and for understanding the processes of hunter-gatherer adaptation to environmental change in general, by identifying the combination and sequence of different areas of behavioral adjustment. The educational impact will include the further development of a regional archaeological database in a well-studied region that will be made available to other scholars. Moreover, this project will continue the exposure of American students to European sites and scholarship that has been ongoing for the past 29 years. The PI has long-standing relationships with the University of Tübingen and the State Office of Historic Preservation of Baden-Württemberg that has facilitated such interaction, and previous fieldwork projects have included participation of German students in excavations, special tours of ongoing Palaeolithic and Neolithic excavations, lectures and demonstrations of flint-knapping, and participation in experimental projects. All materials will be curated with the Landesmuseum in Stuttgart, Germany after analysis in Santa Barbara.