Königsaue
The town of Königsaue in the district Aschersleben-Staßfurt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany was destroyed in the course of opencast lignite mining in 1964. The inhabitants were resettled to the town of Neu-Königsaue, ca. 1 km north of the former location.
Palaeolithic site
Königsaue is also a middle
Stratigraphy
Three settlement layers can be distinguished, separated by limnic sediments. The first layer (A) is dated to the beginning of the interstadial. The vegetation is still turning to boreal, an open steppe type habitat, the pollen assemblage dominated by grasses. Layer C coincides with the climatic optimum. Tree pollen rise to 70%, birch and pine dominate.
Finds
Ca. 6000 flints have been excavated, including a few
type (Faustkeilblätter). The bifacial tools are most common in layer A, while prepared cores are typical for layer B. Numerous unretouched blades and small debitage point to intense local tool production. The site may have been used as a base camp. In layer C bifacial tools again predominate. Layers A and C belong to the Micoquien, B to the Mousterian. Animal bones show that Mammoth, woolly haired rhino, horses, red deer and reindeer were hunted. Some pieces of worked wood have been preserved as well.Pitch
The most famous finds from Königsaue are two pieces of birch-pitch (layers A and B), one of which shows the partial
| HK:63/150/0 | HK64:1/0 | |
|---|---|---|
| length | 2,3 cm | 2,7 cm |
| breadth | 1,4 cm | 2,0 cm |
| thickness | 0,6 cm | 1,2 cm |
| weight | 0,87 g | 1,38 g |
| layer | B | A |
| date | 43800±2100BP | 48400±3700 |
The bigger piece shows impressions of a
Further reading
- J.M.Grünberg/H.Graetsch/U.Baumer/J.Koller, Untersuchung der mittelpaläolithischen Harzreste von Königsaue, Ldkr. Aschersleben-Staßfurt. Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 81, 1999, 7-38
- J. Koller/U. Baumer/D. Mania, Pitch in the Palaeolithic - Investigations of the Middle Palaeolithic "resin remains" from Königsaue. In: G. A. Wagner/D. Mania (eds.), Frühe Menschen in Mitteleuropa - Chronologie, Kultur, Umwelt (Aachen 2001) 99-112.
- Johann Koller/Ursula Brauner/Dietrich Mania, High-Tech in the middle Palaeolithic: Neanderthal manufactured pitch identified. European Journal of Archaeology 4/3, 2001, 385-397.
- J.M.Grünberg, Middle Palaeolithic birch-bark pitch. Antiquity 76, 2002, 15-16
- Harald Meller (ed.), Geisteskraft. Alt- und Mittelpaläolithikum (Halle 2003). (general catalogue of Palaeolithic finds in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia).
External links
- Sachsen-Anhalt State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology
- Königsaue Notgeld (Emergency banknotes)
51°49′N 11°24′E / 51.817°N 11.400°E
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