2022-01-28 15:37:43 • ID: 2299
A Levallois Point from Krems and the Middle Paleolithic of Eastern Austria
Plate 1: Krems- Wachtberg: Loess wall over Bohemian Massif, Schießstattgasse 3 (parcel number 217/4) in Krems an der Donau, Lower Austria. The house was built upon the Bayer excavation of 1930. Permission to display the photo was made accessible to me by the indefatigable Tilo Parg.
Figure 1-4: I found this triangular Middle Paleolithic, unilateral marginal retouched Levallois flake with facetted base (best seen in Figure 3 and, more in detail in Figure 4), made of Hornstone, in Krems an der Donau / Lower Austria, well known for its spectacular (Proto)-Aurignacian and Pavlovian Findings, mentioned several times in this Blog-see here: 1520 , here: 1194 , here: 2189 , here: 1486 , and here: 1366
It was the first Paleolithic artifact I ever found and I "rediscovered" it, some weeks ago, decades after it's finding, in a forgotten box of my Collection.
I picked it up in the summer of 1972 from the loessic surface in a Vineyard, with permission of the owner. The find spot, at the "Katzengraben" is located about 300 m north-east of the Krems-Wachtberg
Pavlovian site, which was excavated by Josef Bayer in the 1930s.
The continuation of Bayer's excavation living floor may be the archaeological layer further south, where during construction work, the unique Pavlovian newborn graves at the Wachtberg were discovered during the 2000s (Einwögerer et al 2008).
The excavation team found a protected double burial of newborns and a single burial of a ca 3 month old child. Interestingly Genome-wide ancient DNA shows that the male infants of the double grave are the earliest reported case of monozygotic twins, while the single grave´s individual was their 3rd-degree male relative. (Teschler-Nicola et al. 2020)
However, it is like bewitched and highly disturbing - whenever one examines the history of science in Austria during the early 20th century, one encounters some disgusting details.
Josef Bayer, the renowned prehistorian, who co-discovered the Venus of Willendorf as a young postdoc in 1908, had been director of the prehistoric and anthropological department of the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Vienna since 1918 and was responsible for both the ethnographical and the prehistoric collection.
Around 1920 Bayer's responsibilities for the ethnographical Collection were to be withdrawn by the instigation of a handful but influential proto-National Socialist professors at the University of Vienna.
Bayer fought these intents in court around 1924 and lost the case. In 1928, he died much too early. In any case, he was saved from seeing the consequences of the Self- Nazification of Austrian's "Elite", especially in the University Milieu, that took place during the 1920ies.
All this information can be found in an article by the always well informed Klaus Taschwer, who has illuminated the right-wing antisemitic academic milieu of Interwar Austria in several books - amongst other issues he also wrote about the "Causa" Bayer, too -see here: Self - Nacification of Austrian Professors at the University of Vienna. I have already described my own family's involvement in this context in an earlier post -See: 2297
But back to the Levallois Point presented in the post here: In eastern Austria the Middle Paleolithic was until recently only known from one rather complete but unstratified find complex at the Gudenushöhle - see: 1506
In Figure 5 you will get a general impression of the topographical situation of the Gudenus Cave which is located about 7 m above the current bank of the "Kleine Krems" River- seen in the middle at the bottom of the picture.
Obermaier and Breuls suggested, that the cave was intermittently flooded by the river, during the Pleistocene, but the poor stratigraphic observations of the 19th century do not allow such an interpretation with certainty.
The Cave is situated in a deep gorge below a vertical cliff, on which the expensively renovated, but not accessible for visitors, Hartenstein Castle stands (Photo courteously by © Bwag/Commons or © Bwag/CC-BY-SA-4.0; Wikipedia).
The cave, a typical "Kniehöhle" has two large entrances, 26 m apart and after almost complete excavation remains exceptionally dry, free of condensation and percolation even after heavy rainfalls, which are common in this part of the Waldviertel today.
The excavation history, which began very early around 1881, can only be described as chaotic. Secondarily, Breuil and Obermaier could separate a Magdalenian from a Middle Paleolithic- see: 1506
It can be assumed that the archaeological infill of the cave came entierly from the last Glaciation.
It is a classic Central European Micoquian, characterized by a flat raw material and a Non-Levallois Chaine operatoire.
The ensemble (Figure 6 in this post shows Plate 8 of the Obermaier/Breul Monograph) is characterized by Faustkeilblätter, Fäustel (small Bifaces), as well as by a great variability of scrapers- mostly transversal scrapers, often with Quina Retouche, made from triangular, convergent or elongated thick blanks. More than 1000 artifacts are known and there is no modern publication of the material, that accumulated over the last 140 years. Excellent pictures of selected artifacts can be found in the always informative dons map site.
The excavations in the nearby Teufelsrast rock shelter were initiated by Bayer in 1923 and continued much later by Neugebauer-Maresch & Teschler-Nicola in 1983. During these excavations, in addition to numerous paleontological finds, some artifacts were found that probably date to the Middle Paleolithic (Neugebauer-Maresch & Teschler-Nicola 1988).
So far there is no direct proof of a Middle Paleolithic settlement in the immediate Krems Area, but there is some indirect evidence:
First, C-14 AMS data from from sondage drillings during the last excavation 2000-2002 at the Hundssteig yielded a charcoal layer, 2 m below the Gravettian strata, without artifacts, which was dated to 41 k.a.(Wildt et al. 2008). These are not pre-treated and uncalibrated samples, so that an age of ca. 45 calendar year would be possible.
This does not proof the presence of late Neanderthals in the Krems Region , because early H. sapiens was already present in Europe at these times (Bacho Kiro, Grotte Mandrin, Oase), at least in the South. In Addition reliable age estimates from the early Aurignacian at Willendorf II/3, are around 43,5 k.a. cal BP and this technocomplex was putatively made by H.Sapiens- see 1717
Secondly Obermaier and Strobel have illustrated 2 Moustier points and other Mousterian -like tools in their Hundssteig monograph (Figure 7). Their design fits more to a Middle Palaeolithic than to an early Aurignacian.
Neugebauer-Maresch also reported about a "Levallois Blade like artifact" from Kammegg at the Kamp valley, about 20 km North of Krems, but this appears to be a misinterpretation and a photographic or graphic documentation is not available (Neugebauer-Maresch 1996).
40 km North of Krems, in the hilly "Waldviertel" near the town of Eggenburg, single Middle Paleolithic artifacts, mostly simple scrapers, were found, and collected decennia ago from the surface. Most of these items come from from the Königsberg near Roggendorf.
In the Waldviertel region, several isolated findings of Leaf Points with a late Middle Paleolithic Appearance have been reported also and are shown in the local Museums in Horn and Eggenburg.
In a small cave Teufelslucken near Roggendorf, some scrapers and a classical Faustkeilblatt of the Central European Micoquian were discovered (Brandtner, and Zaabusch 1950).
One important surface station in Lower Austria, recently published is Großweikersdorf-Kogel, near Tulln, where a collection is preserved, which comprises Levallois cores and flakes (but not a single Levallois point) as well as leaf points and other bifacially reworked pieces, together with numerous scrapers (Neugebauer-Maresch and Thomas 2012 and 2013).
It remains unclear if the middle Paleolithic findings are part of a larger complex with Leafpoints or the consequences of secondary mixing.
It has to be mentioned, that the "Szeletian" of the nearby Moravian sites (for example at Moravský Krumlov about only 80 km in the North) Bears no Levallois component and therefore I would suggest that at least two technocomplexes were present at Großweikersdorf-Kogel.
Regarding the current state of research I suggest that I found in 1972 the first known Levallois point in Lower Austria.
In the meantime a similar artifact has been found in the Middle Palaeolithic Material of the „Berglitzl“ site near Linz about 140 km upstream at the Danube (Upper Austria; Kohl 1996)
Levallois artifacts and simple scrapers made of quartzite and Radiolarite were recently found without further contextual information in 2010 by A. Binsteiner at Ernsthofen, a small town, located in the very west of Lower Austria, directly on the Enns River, which forms the state border with Upper Austria - see: Levallois Technique from Ernsthofen and use the search function of the page.
However, the density of finds is not comparable with the high concentration of Middle Paleolithic artifacts of northern Hessian sites like Lenderscheid near my hometown Kassel - See here: 1624 , here: 1712 , and here: 1625 .
A last possibility, however, would be to assign the artifact of the post to the Bohunician, which is concentrated in the area of Brno in Moravia - about 180 km north-east of Krems. However, since this technocomplex is still unknown in Austria, this seems to me to be too much luck for a simple collector (Skrdla 2013).
After my demise, a transfer to a university institute- by the way with all other lithics presented in this blog- is arranged. That makes me happy.
Recently first Middle Paleolithic surface findings were made from the Burgenland Region, until now a Blind spot in Austrian Paleolithic research.
These tools come from the mainly neolithic workshop site Csaterberg, and are again characterized by a Levallois Chaîne opératoire, the production of bifacially shaped reworked tools and the dominance of simple scrapers. However, the geological decomposition of the artifacts seems to be well advanced (V.C. Schmid et al 2021).
Neanderthal visits to what is now East Austria seem to have occurred rather occasionally- but I am sure that more material will be found after funding an adequate prospection strategy based on Artificial intelligence, which has made considerable progress in recent years…
Note that the find area around Mauthausen and Gusen (also National Socialist mass murder sites) are not covered here, as I do not have any finds from the region.
The last detailed overviews of Upper Austrian Paleolithic finds by H. Kohl can be found here: Paleolithic in Upper Austria
Suggested Reading:
F. Brandtner, and F. Zaabusch: Neuere Paläolithikfunde aus der Umgebung von Eggenburgd. N.-0. Arm. Austr. Heft 5; 1950
P.L. Hacker, P.L. Die Gudenus-Höhle, eine Renthierstation im nieder- o ̈sterreichischen Kremsthale. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, , 1884
J. Strobl & H. Obermaier: Die Aurignacien-Station von Krems (Nieder-Österreich). Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde 3: 129 – 148; 1909
Obermaier, H. & Breuil, H., Die Gudenushöhle in Niederösterreich, Mitt. der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, Bd. XXXVIII, Wien, 1908
Ch. Neugebauer-Maresch: Altsteinzeit im Osten Österreichs, Wiss. Schriftenreihe
Niederösterreich 95/96/97, St. Pölten-Wien 1993
Ch. Neugebauer-Maresch: Menschen der Eiszeit im Waldviertel in F. Steininger: Erdgeschichte des Waldviertels, Schriftenreihe des Waldviertler Heimatbundes 38, 1999, 101–112 (1996).
Kamila Maria Staudigl-Ciechowicz, Das Dienst-, Habilitations- und Disziplinarrecht der Universität Wien; 2017.
Resources and images in full resolution:
- Image: 2022-01-28_krams222222.jpg
- Image: 2022-01-28_e7999999.jpg
- Image: 2022-01-30_Nhagen__Burg_Hartenstein_2.JPG
- Image: 2022-01-31_base.jpg
- Image: 2022-01-31_pseudo.jpg
- Image: 2022-02-01_GUDENUS__PLATE_8.jpg
- Image: 2022-02-18_Krems_Wachtberg_Loesswand.jpg
- Extern Link: www.derstandard.de…hexenjagd-gegen-den-mitentdecker-der-venus-von-willendorf
- Extern Link: www.researchgate.net…273059083_The_Gravettian_Infant_Burials_from_Krems-Wachtberg_Austria
- Extern Link: opac.geologie.ac.at…STEININGER_Erdgeschichte_WHB-38.pdf
- Extern Link: www.oeaw.ac.at…grossweikersdorf-kogel
- Extern Link: www.semanticscholar.org…d9b4020a4ab664542f39dc0a2e04b117b92c8b8d
- Extern Link: forschungsinfrastruktur.bmbwf.gv.at…praehistorie-sammlung-altsteinzeit_4571
- Extern Link: www.donsmaps.com…guden.html
- Extern Link: www.academia.edu…Škrdla_P._2013_The_Bohunician_in_Moravia_and_Adjoining_Regions._Archaeology_Ethnology_and_Anthropology_of_Eurasia_41_3_2_13