2016-10-08 17:24:13 • ID: 1520
Krems / Hundssteig: a multilayered Paleolithic site in Austria
The point can be securely ascribed to the Gravettian. No other projectile points from organic material have been found at this site so far. Krems-Hundssteig, at the wonderful old city of Krems, is the largest Paleolithic open-air site in the loess region of Lower Austria, known since the end of the 19th century.
The Hundssteig site is located on a southward slope called Wachtberg, a promontory where the River Krems flows into the Danube. Here Aurignacian and Gravettian material was found.
The Wachtberg site is famous for its Gravettian / Pavlovian Mammoth kill site, the tenderly constructed graves of three Stone Age infants, animal figurines made of clay and a typical tool kit with micro saws and backed elements, dated to 27 k.a. BP.
Merian spoke about the carcasses of a „Giant“, after the statement in Genesis that “there were giants in the earth” in the days before the Flood. The true nature of such bones was only to be recognized in the year 1799, when the Mammoth got its scientific name. (see external link about the historical context).
Loess was quarried at the site between 1893 and 1904 for the embankment of the Danube. During this time a local teacher, Strobel collected about 70,000 stone implements, together with faunal remains. An original description showed that the site was indeed multilayered, but in the final publication of Strobl and Obermaier in 1909 all paleolithic findings were ascribed to a single find-horizon, the Aurignacian.
Renewed excavations after 2000 showed that the presence of several find horizons ascribed to the Gravettian / Pavlovian and flawed the monolayer theory. Moreover, the C-14-data indicate that the site was frequently used by hunter-gatherer populations from at least ~33 to ~27 k.a. BP. The dating of the Aurignacian, so abundant during the early “excavations”, remains a mystery.
This lithic material is characterized by a large number of retouched bladelets including more than 1,500 Dufour bladelets with alternate retouch associated with unipolar bladelet cores of pyramidal morphology. This ensemble could be interpreted as a Proto- Aurignacian, both by typology and technology.
In addition there are also many tools of an Aurignacien typique like carinated scrapers (cores), Aurignacian blades and strangulated blades.
Actually it is not known if this combination of Protoaurignacian and Aurignacian features represents the effect of geological or curatory mixing of two technocomplexes, or if these artifacts were once the part of a single find horizon.
Provenance: J. Meller Collection
Surf the Blog: See here: 1194 , here: 1486 , here: 1374 , and here: 1703
Resources and images in full resolution:
- Image: 2018-10-11_krems.jpg
- Image: 2018-10-11_Riesenkoerper.jpg
- Image: 2025-02-13_IMG_5226.jpeg
- Extern Link: historyofgeology.fieldofscience.com…fossil-legends-mammoth-as-unicorn.html
- Extern Link: homepage.univie.ac.at…StadlerP_2008g.pdf