Federmesser culture

Penknife groups is a collective term for cultural groups due to their characteristic of Upper Paleolithic archaeological index form, the penknife. In the history of research of the French term synonymous Azilian was in use, which is now used only for penknife fund places in Bavaria ( there also called back lace - groups or " Atzenhofer Group"). Dating of references of the penknife groups are between approximately 12000-10800 BC

The spread of these emerged from the Magdalenian culture occurred in the climate favored moist Allerød interstadial, which was marked by the first large-scale propagation of woody plants (pine and birch forests) after the last ice age ( Weichsel glaciation in the north, Würm glaciation in southern Germany ). Even if the penknife - sites is mainly to correlate with the Alleröd interstadial, some sites is older ( Older Dryas ) and place an overlap with the late Hamburg culture ( Havelte group) close.

The term was introduced in 1933 by HJ Popping, according to the most common type of flint tool, the pen knife. The penknife groups can further be divided into three groups: the Tjonger group, distributed in northern Belgium and the Netherlands ( in the English Creswellien Following ), the Rissener Group (North West Germany and Northeastern Netherlands ) and the Wehlener group (South Schleswig and Northeast Lower Saxony). In southern Sweden and Denmark the simultaneous appearance Bromme culture is called.

Digger

The double grave of Upper Kassel dated about 12,000 BC in the spring diameter groups, after it had previously been attributed to long time Magdalenian IV.

Settlement patterns

The settlement patterns of mobile hunter-gatherers can be traced to comprehensively excavated and analyzed high-resolution storage bins. Since the individual settlements were usually only used for a short time and each had specific functions that represent individual stock only small excerpts from the entire settlement patterns dar. whole settlement area with multiple storage areas are rarely archeologically, such as in the Neuwied Basin with the Fund places Niederbieber, Andernach, urbary Kettig, Bad Breisig. Fund places the penknife groups in the Rhineland have with the tephra of the Laacher volcano often a characteristic stratigraphic markers.

The most important game animals are deer, elk, beaver and aurochs, isolated reindeer and giant deer. Hoofed animals (wild horse ) of open land have largely disappeared. Woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros are in the course of the Quaternary extinctions largely disappeared at the end of the last ice age and is represented only in the steppe zone of Eastern Europe and Siberia.

Inventory

Key forms are penknife (back spikes), back knife, prick, tips and scratches from flint.

In the penknife horizon the Amber Animal by Weitsche dated as one of the rare small works of art. This is the representation of a cow elk.

Known sites is next to Weitsche, Niederbieber on the middle Rhine and Rekem in Belgium.

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