Did climate determine Late Pleistocene settlement dynamics in the Ach Valley, SW Germany?

Abstract

The loss of Neanderthal groups across Western and Central Europe during Oxygen Isotope Stage (OIS) 3 has held the attention of archaeologists for decades. The role that climatic change, genetic interbreeding, and interspecies competition played in the extinction of Neanderthal groups is still debated. Hohle Fels is one of several important Middle and Upper Paleolithic sites from the Ach Valley in southwestern Germany which documents the presence of Neanderthals and modern humans in the region. Chronological and stratigraphic records indicate that these two groups occupied the site with little to no overlap or interaction. This provides the opportunity to examine the behavioural variability of Swabian Neanderthal populations without the complication of cross-cultural influence. In this study we contribute a terrestrial paleoenvironmental record derived from the small mammal material from Hohle Fels Cave to the ever-growing archaeological record of this period. By reconstructing the climate and landscape of the Ach Valley during this time we can identify the effect that the OIS 3 environment had on the presence of Neanderthals in the region. Based on indicator taxa and the habitat weighing method, the small mammal record, which includes rodents, insectivores, and bats, from Hohle Fels shows that the earliest Neanderthal occupation took place on a landscape characterized by substantial woodland and forest, rivers and ponds, as well as moist meadows and grasslands. A gradual increase in cold tundra and arctic environments is clear towards the end of the Middle Paleolithic, extending to the end of the early Aurignacian which may correlate with the onset of the Heinrich 4 event (~42,000 kya). Our taphonomic analysis indicates the material was accumulated primarily by opportunistic predators such as the great grey owl, snowy owl, and European eagle owl, and therefore reflects the diversity of landscapes present around the site in the past. Importantly, at the time Neanderthals abandoned the Ach Valley we find no indication for dramatic climatic deterioration. Rather, we find evidence of a gradual cooling of the Swabian landscape which may have pushed Neanderthal groups out of the Ach Valley prior to the arrival of modern human Aurignacian groups.

A revised AMS and tephra chronology for the Late Middle to Early Upper Paleolithic occupations of Ortvale Klde, Republic of Georgia

“…The temporal gap between the LMP and EUP in the southern chamber of Ortvale Klde appears to be coeval with the rockfall deposit at Bondi Cave (layer VI, 47.5 ± 2.6 ka BP; Douka and Higham, 2017), suggesting EUP hominins may have repopulated a region already devoid of or thinly populated by LMP groups, thus allowing us to reject the hypothesis that this subregion of the southern Caucasus served as a LMP refugium. A similar pattern of regional LMP depopulation before the onset of the EUP, often correlated with Heinrich 5 and Heinrich 4, has been suggested for other sites and regions, including Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria (Fewlass et al, 2020;Hublin et al, 2020), Hohlefels in southern Germany (Conard et al, 2006;Rhodes et al, 2019), El Salt in the Iberian Peninsula (Mallol et al, 2012;Galv an et al, 2014), and Mezmaiskaya in the northern Caucasus (Golovanova et al, 2010a). While future advances in AMS dating and tephra correlation may narrow this temporal gap, the pattern between sites using the same UF pretreatment protocols is consistent.…”

“…The changes in lithic and organic technologies that define the shift from the Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) to the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) are observed across Eurasia, albeit in varied forms and at different times. At some sites, compelling cases can be made for local technological continuity between the LMP and EUP (Mussi, 2001;Flas, 2011;Nigst, 2012;Ruebens, 2013;Hublin, 2015;Peresani et al, 2016), whereas at others, there are no clear precedents for the EUP assemblages that appear to replace previous LMP assemblages (Tostevin, 2000(Tostevin, , 2012Skrdla, 2003Skrdla, , 2017Conard et al, 2006;Adler et al, 2006Adler et al, , 2008Richter et al, 2008;Hoffecker, 2009;Rhodes et al, 2019;Fewlass et al, 2020). Recently, revised chronologies of sites in Western Europe suggest that LMP and EUP populations could have coexisted in some regions for millennia (Higham et al, 2014;Fu et al, 2015), and chronological data show that the disappearance of the Neanderthals and other LMP populations was not temporally or geographically uniform, indicating a complex mosaic of interaction and change across Eurasia.…”

A quantitative paleoclimatic reconstruction of the non-analogue environment of oxygen isotope stage 3: new data from small mammal records of southwestern Germany

“…As such, robust terrestrial records of local floral and faunal community structure during OIS 3 (~ 60,000-25,000 BP) are required to tease out the role that regional characteristics played in mitigating the effect of continental climatic events. Such records are also needed to assess the continued applicability of environmentally deterministic models of Neanderthal extinction and early modern human expansion throughout Central Europe (Discamps and Royer 2017;Rhodes et al 2019). Terrestrial paleoenvironmental records are based on a variety of proxy data sources including stable isotopes, pollen spectra, mammalian community structure, lake sediments, and speleothems.…”

Split-based points from the Swabian Jura highlight Aurignacian regional signatures

“…Additional reconstruction based on the microfauna also suggests that the onset of the Aurignacian is characterized by a mild climate, which is followed by a cooler and drier condition, a pattern reflected in the abundance of two species of lemmings and narrow-headed vole [70][71][72]. The middle to upper horizons of the Aurignacian saw a return to a mild climate with open boreal elements.…”