Documentation and analysis of the earliest wooden weapons from the Paleolithic site of Schöningen (13 II, excavation H. Thieme)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Holger Militz; Professor Dr. Thomas Terberger
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447423357

In the 1990s, the discovery of the world’s oldest complete wooden weapons in the lignite mine of Schöningen (district Helmstedt, Lower Saxony) revolutionized our perspective on the technical-cognitive capabilities of early humans. During excavation nearly all wooden remains from what is known as the "spear horizon" (Schöningen site 13 II-4) were completely recovered, so there is a unique inventory available for analyses. For years the conservation of wooden artefacts have necessarily been focal points of research. But at the same time it was possible to lay important groundwork for scientific analyses of the wooden remains, including the compilation of all finds in a GIS-database, the classification of wooden species for most artefacts and wood-anatomical descriptions of the most important finds. A systematic inspection of the total number of 778 wooden finds from the "spear horizon", which are predominantly preserved waterlogged in their original find condition, could also be organised. In this process at least 44 worked wooden remains were detected in addition to the 12 wooden artefacts already known in 45 fragments. Worked objects are predominantly made of spruce wood, in some cases also of pine or larch wood; unworked wooden remains, classified as willow or poplar, are plainly part of the natural vegetation of the time. The project applied for here will analyse all wooden remains from the "spear horizon" in their entirety. For that purpose, all wooden artefacts will be recorded and described in detail in order to obtain a reliable total inventory. High-resolution images of the wooden remains will be obtained by different techniques such as CT, scanning and digital microscopy. In a next step a functional analysis of all artefacts takes place. The chaîne opératoire of all artefacts will be established to clarify in what condition artefacts were brought to the site, and whether and to what extent processing steps may have been carried out directly on site. Among others refittings of wooden remains are necessary for this. Tree ring sequences of wooden remains will be analysed in order to achieve an internal tree ring sequence for this site, which in turn will permit the identification of overlaps in several artefact tree ring sequences that might indicate synchronous usage or usage in time spans close to each other. Thereby evidence for the chronological depth of the find layer as well as climatological details can be obtained. Tree ring sequences of wooden artefacts already worked out by W. Schoch, for instance, verified freezing episodes during periods of growth. All results are to be published in peer reviewed journals and in a monograph. It is furthermore intended to present them on the Internet as well as in the Research Museum in Schöningen.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants