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2016-10-08 17:24:13   •   ID: 1520

Krems / Hundssteig: a multilayered Paleolithic site in Austria

Figure 1
Figure 1: An ivory projectile point weathered after a heavy rain in August 1972 from the loess at the Krems-Hundssteig site together with a blade for the production of tiny bladelets with a flat carinated end.

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.

Figure 2
Figure 2: Quaternary Paleontological remains from the Hundssteig were known since the 17th century. Swedish soldiers found Mammoth remains at the Hundssteig in Krems during entrenchment works in 1645. A Mammoth molar from this find was engraved by Mathias Merian around 1780 and entitled: Waarhaffte grösse und abbildung eines zaan, von dem Jenigen Rissen cörper welcher zu Crembs in unter Österreich Ao. 1645 gefunden und aussgraben worden.

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.

Figure 1
This interpretation prevailed until the salvage operations of the remnants of the site after 2000. Hahn in 1973 published a small find complex of typical Gravettian artifacts (mainly backed lamelles, Microgravettes and a Pavlovian saw) which had been found by Kesseldorfer 1890/1893 during excavation of a cellar in the narrow pass in the loess (Figure 3)

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 ensemble 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

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