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Publikationssystem UB Tuebingen advisor Conard, Nicholas (Prof. PhD) author Schürch, Benjamin 2025-08-25T13:50:24Z 2026-12-01 http://hdl.handle.net/10900/169466 Die Dissertation ist gesperrt bis zum 01. Dezember 2026 ! The sites of the Swabian Jura have been the subject of prehistoric research since the 1860s. Prehistoric archaeology, as the discipline is known today, developed in Tübingen parallel to the excavations carried out in the Swabian Jura. Today, we are trying to analyze the archaeological remains with an everevolving catalog of methods. New methods which provide us with deeper insights into the world of Paleolithic societies that were previously not possible. This work attempts a reanalysis of the archeological record of Vogelherd and other sites in the Swabian Jura. The aim is to make the best possible use of the currently available catalog of methods and to develop them further without losing track of the historical context. The main focus of the work is on Vogelherd in the Lone Valley. Vogelherd was excavated by Gustav Riek in 1931. Since the first publications by Riek in 1932, 1933 and 1934, no comprehensive analysis of all layers has been carried out. With the progress of research methods and the discipline itself, an update of the overall context of the site was necessary. The results of this revision are presented in this work. Stone artifacts are the find category that receives the most attention in this dissertation. The typological and technological characteristics of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic assemblages form the basis of this work. New dating, new analyses of the research history, the assemblages, the complete analysis of all lithic artifacts from the old excavation and the analysis of the artifacts from the re-excavation result in a new complex picture of the site. In addition to the known occupation of the site in the Middle Paleolithic, Aurignacian, Magdalenian and Neolithic periods, evidence of Gravettian and Mesolithic use of the site was discovered. The identification of the Gravettian in Vogelherd shows that the preservation conditions of the Gravettian layers in the Lone Valley must be assessed individually for each site and that the Gravettian was not always completely eroded as has been suggested before. In combination with the results from the neighboring site Langmahdhalde, we gain new insights into the earliest resettlement of the Swabian Jura after the Last Glacial Maximum. With new data on Vogelherd and the Paleolithic of the Swabian Jura, an increasingly complex picture of the Paleolithic in the South-western Germany is emerging. Summarizing key findings for each technocomplex reveals the following picture. In the Middle Paleolithic, the great influence of the procurement of raw materials and the distance of the outcrops on the characteristics of the assemblages is evident. This is particularly apparent in the case of the Middle Paleolithic of Vogelherd and the Keilmesser. The Neanderthals in the Swabian Jura show a relatively stable concept reservoir over a period of approx. 80,000 years. Different reduction concepts can be combined in one workpiece, which can be observed at Vogelherd and Heidenschmiede. However, no rapid development can be traced using the technological development of lithic industries. This is different for the Upper Paleolithic, with major technological and cultural changes every few thousand years. This stability in technological development in the Middle Paleolithic may have less to do with a lack of cognitive abilities than with slower cultural development. With the arrival of anatomically modern humans, a cultural evolution takes place in the Aurignacian of the Swabian Jura manifested in artworks, musical instruments, personal ornaments, organic artifacts, and major shifts in lithic technology. We were able to establish that reduction sequences are dependent on the quality of the raw material used. This was confirmed by the sorting of lithic raw material units and refits. Especially the refits in combination with technological and use-wear analysis allow new conclusions to be drawn about the behavior of anatomically modern humans. Comparisons with Geißenklösterle reveal characteristics of the Swabian Aurignacian, and in some cases temporal trends could be established. With the refits and minimal raw material units, which are defined as artifacts that are classified as belonging to one nodule, we could give insights into the reduction and organization of the use of lithic artifacts, comparable to a snapshot into the life of Aurignacian humans. Use-wear analyses provided further insights into the use and hafting of lithic artifacts. Central questions deal with differences between bladelet cores and tools from the Aurignacian context. The differentiation between them is crucial for our understanding of the early Upper Paleolithic industries, which are largely based on the production and use of bladelets. For raw material analyses, it was also essential to compare the procurement strategies from different sites so that patterns from the overall region, rather than from individual sites, are considered. This makes it possible to better contextualize the new results within the Paleolithic landscape of the Swabian Jura. In addition to the usual methods of analysis, a focus was placed on the procurement of raw material. By analyzing the raw material using infrared spectroscopy, we are trying to create an empirical data basis for the reconstruction of the territories of Paleolithic groups. Evidence of this kind and extent has been lacking so far from the South-western German context. The analyses of personal ornaments in the Upper Paleolithic, especially shell ornaments, that were often transported over long-distances, in combination with the size of territories indicated by lithic raw materials, lead to a better understanding of group identity and territoriality in the Paleolithic. Hopefully our knowledge about identity, networks and territoriality can be expanded in the future by broadening the scope of the previous analysis. In conclusion, it can be stated that this dissertation provides new insights concerning the interpretation of individual lithic artifacts as well as entire assemblages. Thus, there is greater potential to reconstruct so far unknown aspects of Paleolithic lifeways. On a regional and supra-regional level, new evidence has been gained on the territories, the connectivity between groups that extends beyond these areasand the influences of extreme climatic conditions, such as that of the Last Glacial Maximum. The resulting implications offer increased value for prehistoric archaeology that goes far beyond the regional perspective of the Swabian Jura. en ubt-podno Reassessing Vogelherd: Lithic technology, Raw materials, and Stratigraphy PhDThesis URL https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/10900/169466/3/Dissertation%20Benjamin%20Sch%c3%bcrch.pdf File MD5 ddd51377e79a16362b1e05f545ad4f67 94490778 application/pdf Dissertation Benjamin Schürch.pdf URL https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/10900/169466/4/Dissertation%20Benjamin%20Sch%c3%bcrch.pdf.txt File MD5 76f9729762b9b0737e67cef9ca784245 1897258 text/plain Dissertation Benjamin Schürch.pdf.txt