The utilisation of remains as raw material and its importance for the people of the German

A. Scheer Institute of , University of Tuebingen, - [email protected]

SUMMARY: The upper Danube valley is discussed as a migration corridor both for animals and as as a preferred habitat of mammoth until crossing the . It could be shown that mammoth played an important role not only as a subsistence component but also as a raw material source in all gravet- tian sites along the upper Danube, sometimes also in a fossil or subfossil sate. Mainly the value of ivory is observed. Due to the high risk for mammoth hunting the seasonal aggregation of several social units in the Achtal is focussed on its geographical situation as a terminal point of the main mammoth migration with prob- ably only small herds.

1. INTRODUCTION away to the North-East of the Ach valley. The Weinberghöhle, Klausen Höhlen and Abri im The Danube was always an important migra- Dorf sites are located downstream. Only one tion corridor both for animals and for humans. open-air site at Salching is known along the This corridor connected the Eastern Hungarian german Danube, situated on the right river plains to the Western Austrian and German bank. New AMS dates sampled at the parts of the Danube valley. The Danube plains Geissenklösterle and and extend up to the Viennese basin. Behind this ranging between 27 and 29 ky (Hahn 1995) basin the Danube flows in a narrow valley to unambiguously attribute the sites in the Ach the West, where it broadens once again behind valley, as well as the Weinberghöhle and until it reaches Krems. At this point, the valley Salching, to the early Gravettian. Refitting of becomes narrow and rebroadens only with the stone have definitely shown that at least Northern "Alpenvorland", where it is bordered three of the Ach valley caves were occupied to the North by the Bavarian Forest, and finally contemporaneously during a short period of the by the Bavarian and Swabian Jura. To the West Gravettian (Scheer 1990). This early phase of of Ulm the river valley narrows and at this point the Gravettian is characterised by ivory pen- the volume of water in the river is strongly dants, flechettes and some rare shouldered reduced: after this the Danube crosses the points or tanged Font Robert points (Scheer Swabian Jura in a narrow valley. 2000). However at the Bockstein Törle (Hahn With one exception located on the left bank 2000) and probably at the Klausen Höhle of the river, all of the archaeological sites (Hedges et al. 1997) a late phase of the described in this paper are situated in side val- Gravettian with flat-faced burins but also dihe- leys nearby the Danube. In South-Western dral burins and pendants of ivory and stone is Germany the Gravettian is mainly known from represented. The stratigraphical position of cave sites with a concentration in the Ach val- Klausen Höhle and Abri im Dorf is unclear. ley: Geissenklösterle, Brillenhöhle, Hohlefels The early phase of the Gravettian belongs to the and Sirgenstein (Scheer 1994). The Bockstein end of an interstadial, probably the –Törle site is located in the Lone valley not far Kesselt/Maisière oscillation or the succeeding 455 The World of Elephants - International Congress, Rome 2001

colder phase of the l'inter Maisière Tursac atively high percentages of mammoth are (Djindjian & Bosselin 1994). Based on climat- present mainly in the Weinberghöhle, but also ic evidence the cold-temperate, probably not at Geissenklösterle (Table 1). In a recent faunal too humid continental climate indicated tundra- analysis Münzel (1997, 1999) has shown that like grasslands with a low percentage of the weight of bones identified taxonomically as copswood and sparse trees and shrubs, along mammoth and identified to mammoth-woolly with moorlands and some open waters on the rhino in size, dominate the total weight of large kastic plateaux of the Swabian and Bavarian mammal bones at Geissenklösterle and are Jura. therefore considered to represent the most im- portant component in the archaeological fauna 2. EVIDENCE AND IMPORTANCE OF MAMMOTH followed by horse and reindeer. This is true considering the amount of meat but certainly According to Vereschagin & Barishnikov not in terms of hunting frequency. (1982) were moving above all in The remains of the species were differential- broad river valleys or lacustrine environments. ly utilised. Among other hints cut marks on The Hungarian plains up to the Viennese Basin cave bear bones indicate hunting of the species and probably Krems could be characterised as and a comparatively higher exploitation of bear the preferred habitats of mammoths, as sug- remains - more than expected. The highest gested also by Oliva (2000). A few mammoth counts of butchering marks were recorded on herds certainly migrated through the narrow bones of mammoth and horse (Münzel 1999). valley of Austrian Alpes reaching the broad Mammoth and reindeer provided not only a Alpenvorland. The narrowing of the Danube source of meat, but their bones, tusks and antler valley to the West of Ulm presumably marked were used as raw material. the boundary of the mammoths habitat. The skeletal material found in the caves rep- Due to selection by humans faunal remains at resents the remains of hunted prey modified by archaeological sites do not represent the natural butchering, choice of portions of the carcasses composition of the fauna. Even when we as- for transportation (since carcass portions had to sume that hunting took place close to the settle- be transported until 90 m from the bottom of ments, archaeological faunas can only give an the valley to the caves), charring of the bones, indication of the local faunal composition. Rel- and loss of during carnivore gnawing ac-

Tab. 1 - Large mammal fauna from the Gravettian layers of the Brillenhöhle, Hohle Fels (HF), Weinberghöhle (WH) and Geißenklösterle (MNI of GK only teeth).

456 The Utilisation of mammoth remains as raw material and its importance for the Gravettian people... tivities. The bulk of mammoth and other In general the inventories from Geis- species remains have been deliberately modi- senklösterle, Brillenhöhle, Hohle Fels and fied by humans. Münzel (1999) describes the Sigenstein and even the Weinberghöhle are faunal assemblage from Geissenklösterle as comparable with each other apart from some representing the last stage of a "chaine opéra- local characteristics. The lithic as well toire", in other words a deliberate selection of as characteristic bone tools such as ivory pen- skeletal parts as raw material for the production dants (Scheer 1995), numerous projectile points of artefacts. Comparative analyses of faunas with rounded bases along with "bone polishers" from other south German Gravettian sites are made of mammoth sized bones are common lacking or are currently being undertaken. At features of the inventories. Salching bones were not preserved. Minimum Ivory was of particular value. Art objects numbers of individuals are given for the Bril- made of ivory are lacking in the Gravettian cul- lenhöhle (Boessneck & von den Driesch 1973), tural levels with the exception of a question- Hohler Fels (Markert 1996) and Weinberghöhle able, not conserved from the (von Koenigswald 1974). In comparison to the Brillenhöhle. Instead ivory pendants are evidence from Geissenklösterle and especially chronological markers and regional items at the in the Weinberghöhle, the mammoth seems rel- early Gravettian cave sites. The complete pro- atively less frequent, but with a minimum of duction sequence of standardised pendants and four individuals (MNI), an important source of individual pieces is well known. These pen- meat. dants could also have been made of bone or The six individuals (MNI) of mammoth at antler, of which there are a few examples. the Weinberghöhle appear to indicate a certain However, ivory appears to have been the pre- specialisation of mammoth hunting (von ferred material. This was not due to the ease of Koenigswald 1974). working ivory, since if not treated ivory is more There is no doubt that the mammoth was an difficult to work than either bone or antler important subsistence component as shown by (Christensen 1999). It is highly likely that numerous cut marks found on its bones. The palaeolithic people knew how to soften ivory. role of mammoth as a source of bone and ivory Whereas it is easier to work bones which are will now be discussed. For the Geissenklösterle still fresh, ivory can be worked in a fossil or Münzel (1999, Tab. 55) demonstrated that subfossil state. Experiments have shown that skeletal elements which could be used as raw fossil ivory of mammoth, softened in water, is material comprise between 50% to 90% of the carvable like wood (Hahn et al. 1995). Some of weight of bones per species. In the case of the material used for ivory pendants appears to mammoth 88% of these remains are ribs and be fossil or subfossil ivory. A comparable 9% is ivory. Even when the high numbers of analysis of tools made of bone has not been ivory pendants are excluded, 40% of the mam- undertaken so far. The choice of ivory for the moth remains have been deliberately modified production of pendants may lie in their func- and 4.7 % bear traces of cut marks. When the tion. The tear-drop shaped pendants possibly non-identifiable bones of mammoth or woolly mimic the canines of deer, which were rare in rhino size are considered, 83 % are ribs, 29% of this region. The wearing of such pendants on the bones are deliberately modified and 13.5 % the clothes probably had a symbolic character. bear traces of cut marks. The deliberate selec- Ivory was chosen as a raw material for this type tion of these elements of mammoth as raw of pendant due to its extremely homogenous, material is supported by the fact that their num- fine-grained material which could be highly bers exceed the numbers of these elements in polished. The presence of pendants made of other species present. Beside bones comparable fossil or subfossil ivory shows that ivory was in size to those of bear or horse and those of particularly sought as a raw material for the reindeer appear to have had a certain value as a production of pendants and cannot be consid- source of raw material. ered just as debris from the tusks of hunted ani- 457 The World of Elephants - International Congress, Rome 2001

mals. This contradicts an interpretation of ivory social units (Oliva 2000). A seasonal aggrega- as hunting trophies and might point to its sym- tion of several social units is very probable in bolic character in terms of prestige, status, sex, the case of the settlement of the caves in the clan etc. Ach valley. The presence of similar ivory pen- It is remarkable that comparable ivory pen- dants in all of the caves presupposes a certain dants are very rare in relation to the mass of reciprocal contact. The contemporary occupa- available raw material at Moravian sites, where tion of at least three of the caves has been mammoth is much more abundant (Oliva 2000) shown by lithic refittings. However, the inven- and ivory preservation is very good (Oliva tories from each of these sites still have their 1995; Kozlowski 1992). At Pavlov I and II own individualities. The archaeological remains (Absolon 1945; Klima 1976) as well as Dolni suggest seasonal contact of four social units. Vestonice (Klima 1983) comparable pendants Evidence of seasonality from the faunal re- were often made of stone or in other forms. The mains indicates settlement between spring and question is whether we are dealing with differ- early summer. Perhaps this seasonal settlement ing values of ivory as a raw material or differ- focussed on the geographical situation of the ent traditions along the Upper Danube. Ach valley which was the terminal point of the However, ivory pendants similar to those found main mammoth migration west of Ulm. The in Southern Germany also occur in the Ach valley as well as the "Wellheimer Trocken- Mamutova cave situated further to the north- tal" with the Weinberghöhle are both quite nar- east (Kozlowski 1992) indicate the presence of row valleys, where certainly only a few mam- these pendants might be specific to caves sites. moths appeared which were relatively easy quarry for the hunters. However if hunting took 3. CONCLUSION place in the Danube valley, the hunters would have had to transport their prey over several For the Gravettian people along the Upper kilometres. In any case mammoth reached the Danube mammoth was an important source of Danube valley or its side valleys west of Ulm. meat particularly in the Weinberghöhle. Even In view of the geographical and archaeological when fewer mammoths belong to the hunted faunal evidence here mammoth were probably fauna at the caves in the Ach valley, the amount only present in small herds. The larger amount of meat even from these small numbers of indi- of mammoth remains in the Weinberghöhle viduals was much larger in comparison to rein- may indicate either different focal point of deer and horse, as indicated by the bone hunting or the presence of larger herds of mam- weight. Ribs comparable in size to those of moth downstream in the broader valley of the mammoth, cave bear and horse were the most Danube. important sources of raw material for the pro- duction of bone points. Ivory plays an impor- 4. REFERENCES tant role in decorative objects disproportionate to the large amount of bone and antler. Absolon, K. 1945. Die Erforschung der diluvi- The use of fossil or subfossil ivory by the alien Mammutjägerstation von Unter-Wis- could be due to the ease with which ternitz in den Pollauer Bergen in Mähren. this material could be worked or could point to Arbeitsbericht über das dritte Grabungsjahr the rarity of fresh ivory, indicating that ivory 1926, Brno. was collected just like raw material for lithic Boessneck, J. & von den Driesch, A. 1973. Die production. The possibility that other skeletal jungpleistozänen Tierknochenfunde aus elements collected from the carcasses of mam- der Brillenhöhle. In G. Riek (ed.), Das moths which had died naturally were utilised Paläolithikum der Brillenhöhle bei - cannot be excluded. beuren (Schwäbische Alb). Forschungen Hunting mammoths bore a high risk for the und Berichte zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte in hunters and requires a greater cooperation of Baden-Württemberg 4/II. Stuttgart: Mueller 458 The Utilisation of mammoth remains as raw material and its importance for the Gravettian people...

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