| 563 BC | Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism. | |
| 1605 | Philip IV, king of Spain and Portugal (1621-65). | |
| 1726 | Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence. | |
| 1893 | Mary Pickford (Gladys Smith), early film actress. | |
| 1893 | Edgar “Yip” Harburg, lyricist (“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,” “Over the Rainbow”). | |
| 1920 | Carmen McRae, jazz vocalist and pianist. | |
Volume 89, December 2015, Pages 92–104
Special Issue: Excavations at Schöningen: New Insights into Middle Pleistocene Lifeways in Northern Europe
Paleoenvironment and possibilities of plant exploitation in the Middle Pleistocene of Schöningen (Germany). Insights from botanical macro-remains and pollenAbstract
Plant
use is an elusive issue in Paleolithic archaeology. Due to poor organic
preservation in many sites, botanical material is not always present.
The sediments in Schöningen, however, contain abundant botanical
macro-remains like wood, fruits, seeds, and other parts of plants which
offer the opportunity to reconstruct the local vegetation. Combined with
palynological results, it is possible to reveal the full potential of
this environment to hominins. Ethnobotanical studies of hunter-gatherer
societies living in similar environments illustrate the importance of
plants for subsistence purposes. The identified taxa from the
archaeological horizons at Schöningen include a broad spectrum of
potentially exploitable species that could be sources of food, raw
material, and firewood.
Keywords
1. Introduction
The
preservation of around 300 ka old organic material is only possible
because of rapid sedimentation and waterlogged conditions in Schöningen
that prevented decomposition of material by microorganisms. The
excavation of a wooden throwing stick in 1994 was the start of a series
of important discoveries in the open cast mine of Schöningen (Lower
Saxony, Germany), which has significantly contributed to our
understanding of prehistoric humans. Between 1994 and 1999, the
excavator Thieme uncovered thousands of wooden fragments, numerous
wooden weapons and tools, stone artifacts, and animal bones with
butchering marks (Thieme and Maier, 1995, Thieme, 1996, Thieme, 1997, Thieme, 1999a, Thieme, 1999b, Thieme, 2000 and Thieme, 2007).
There
are three sites with cultural levels: Schöningen 13 I, level 1;
Schöningen 13 II, level 4; and the site Schöningen 12 B with the levels 1
and 2. Schöningen 13 I, level 1 contains flint tools, flakes, and
faunal remains of steppe species (Thieme, 1997 and Thieme, 2007).
Schöningen 13 II, level 4, the so-called ‘spear horizon,’ is the
cultural level with the wooden spears, animal bones with cut marks and
dominated by horse, and several flint tools and flakes (Thieme, 1997, Thieme, 2000, Thieme, 2005 and Thieme, 2007). Schöningen 12 B, levels 1 and 2 yield stone tools, and botanical and faunal remains. In level 1 there are also four fir (Abies alba) branch bases that are considered to be hafting implements (“Klemmschaft”) for stone artifacts ( Thieme, 2007).
Schöningen
today is widely associated with the ‘hunting spears,’ which, together
with the remains of numerous horses, are the most important discovery of
this site complex (Thieme, 1997, Thieme, 2005 and Thieme, 2007).
The spears are the oldest example of distance hunting weapons and show
that 300,000 years ago hominins were able to successfully hunt for large
prey.
The sediments
bear other botanical materials besides the spears, namely carpological
(fruits and seeds) remains, vegetative plant parts, and pollen. Whereas
other papers focus on the hunting activities in Schöningen 13 II, level
4, this paper sheds light on the archaeobotanical remains (wood, fruit,
and seed) from this site. A number of researchers have conducted studies
at Schöningen over the last three decades focusing on paleoecological
issues such as vegetation history and environmental settings (Jechorek, 1997, Jechorek, 2000, Jechorek et al., 2007 and Czaja, 2012).
The interglacial sediments from profiles at Schöningen 12 B and 13 II
were specifically sampled for carpological remains from 1992 to 1996 and
again in 2002. The samples reveal 132 identified species (Jechorek, 2000 and Jechorek et al., 2007). Czaja (2012) extended the taxa list to more than 200 species, but these results are not published yet. Schoch, 1995, Schoch, 2007a and Schoch, 2007b
investigated more than 3000 wooden fragments from Schöningen 12 B;
Schöningen 12 II, level 1–2; and Schöningen 13 II, level 3–4, in
addition to the spears and other wooden artifacts. New botanical samples
were taken from the fireplaces in Schöningen 13 II, level 4 and during
excavation works from 2008 until 2012. Here we present the data and a
discussion about the natural environment of Schöningen and the
possibilities for human plant use at the time of deposition.
The
species list of all archaeobotanical data contains several plants that
could be used for different purposes. As we know from modern
hunter-gatherers, plants play an important role in the life of humans.
Recent research provides evidence for the use of plants as food, raw
material, or medicine in Lower and Middle Paleolithic contexts (Dominguez-Rodrigo et al., 2001, Madella et al., 2002, Lev et al., 2005, Pickering and Heaton, 2009, Hardy, 2010, Henry, 2010, Koller and Baumer, 2010, Revedin et al., 2010, Hardy and Moncel, 2011, Henry et al., 2011, Sievers and Muasya, 2011, Wadley et al., 2011, Hardy et al., 2012 and Sistiaga et al., 2014).
Usually,
the older the site, the lower the probability of organic preservation.
Decay and erosion processes have more time to destroy plant material.
Therefore, assertions concerning the extent of plant use in the
Paleolithic are difficult. Ethnological studies form one possibility to
build hypotheses around the fragmentary archaeological record. For
instance, Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas (1967)
offers data on about 1200 cultures, which serve as a frame of reference
with which we can compare and test our archaeological data (Binford, 2001).
Furthermore, the reconstructed natural vegetation of the archaeological
horizons shows a great amount of potential food and raw material.
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