Space and Activity on an Upland Neolithic Landscape

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Investigations of Neolithic cultural landscapes in Southern Germany raise questions about relationships between clusters of settlements, low-density artifact scatters, and empty space, and call for analysis of individual settlements in the context of broader cultural landscapes. This poster presents results of test excavations on an upland LBK settlement in the context of a regional survey project focused on the Swabian Alb plateau, a significant source of stone raw material. The regional project combines geomagnetic survey, systematic fieldwalking, and analysis of private collections to explore Neolithic activities on the plateau. The Schlaghau LBK site was investigated as a part of this project, with targeted test excavations of settlement features located through geomagnetic survey of an area with dense surface finds. At 670 meters above sea level, Schlaghau is among the highest-elevation LBK settlements known. Excavated assemblages from Schlaghau are examined in the context of regional patterns in surface artifact density, raw material availability, suitability for agriculture, settlement features, and chronological and functional variation in lithic assemblages. Comparisons of raw material attributes, core technology, and chipped stone tools point to intensive use of diverse locally available cherts at the upland margin of a LBK settlement cluster in the upper Danube valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24748