Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe—the Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

Abstract

The database regarding the earliest occupation of Europe has increased significantly in quantity and quality of data points over the last two decades, mainly through the addition of new sites as a result of long-term systematic excavations and large-scale prospections of Early and early Middle Pleistocene exposures. The site distribution pattern suggests an ephemeral presence of hominins in the south of Europe from around 1 million years ago onward, with occasional short northward expansions along the western coastal areas when temperate conditions permitted. From around 600,000-700,000 years ago, Acheulean artefacts appear in Europe and somewhat later hominin presence seems to pick up, with more sites and now some also present in colder climatic settings. It is again only later, around 350,000 years ago, that the first sites show up in more continental, central parts of Europe, east of the Rhine. A series of recent papers on the Early Pleistocene palaeontological site of Untermassfeld (Thuringia, Germany) makes claims that are of great interest for studies of earliest Europe and are at odds with the described pattern: the papers suggest that Untermassfeld has yielded stone tools and humanly modified faunal remains, evidence for a 1 million years old hominin presence in European continental mid-latitudes, and additional evidence that hominins were well-established in Europe already around that time period. Here, we evaluate these claims and demonstrate that these studies are severely flawed in terms of data on provenance of the materials studied and in the interpretation of faunal remains and lithics as testifying to a hominin presence at the site. In actual fact, any reference to the Untermassfeld site as an archaeological one is unwarranted. Furthermore, it is not the only European Early Pleistocene site where inferred evidence for hominin presence is problematic. The strength of the spatiotemporal patterns of hominin presence and absence depends on the quality of the data points we work with, and database maintenance, including critical evaluation of new sites, is crucial to advance our knowledge of the expansions and contractions of hominin ranges during the Pleistocene.J Paleo Arch (2018) 1:5-31 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-017-0003-

The last refugia of the ‘Young Europe’ defenders: Untermassfeld (Thuringia, Germany)

“…Scientific disagreements and a healthy scientific debate about causal relationships and how to decipher ephemeral residues of past realities is one of the main columns to reach convergence on a solution. Here, we reply to the unfair serious insinuations and criticism made by Roebroeks et al 1 to maintain the "paleontological" status of Untermassfeld and the obsolete "Young Europe" paradigm. The previous criticism made by Baales 2 in 2013 and now Roebroeks et al 1 do not only reject evidence of hominin activities at Untermassfeld without providing any scientific arguments, 3−6 but contain serious and undemonstrated insinuations, mere opinions and attacks.…”

“…Here, we reply to the unfair serious insinuations and criticism made by Roebroeks et al 1 to maintain the "paleontological" status of Untermassfeld and the obsolete "Young Europe" paradigm. The previous criticism made by Baales 2 in 2013 and now Roebroeks et al 1 do not only reject evidence of hominin activities at Untermassfeld without providing any scientific arguments, 3−6 but contain serious and undemonstrated insinuations, mere opinions and attacks. A first reply paper responding to the criticisms of Baales was published by Landeck and Garcia.…”

“…64 bone specimens from Untermassfeld site were transferred to the museum and that this material had been submitted in the meantime to Senckenberg Research Station of Quaternary Paleontology at Weimar. We assume that this sample is part of the collection we have analyzed because we can identify some of these bones in the paper by Roebroeks et al 1,8,9 Thus, we have to state that the bone collection has been donated incompletely to the museum by the finders. We also sent a formal petition to the director of Senckenberg Research Station to request permission to analyze and identify the material.…”

“…A new draft of this paper was also recently rejected by the journal PLOS ONE. 9 Moreover, in their new attempt, 1 neither their primary paper was changed or modified, nor their insinuations and accusations. Thus, we believe that this is the genuine intention of the responsible paleontologists to publish the same paper without including counterstatements or rectifications.…”

“…Thus, we believe that this is the genuine intention of the responsible paleontologists to publish the same paper without including counterstatements or rectifications. Baales 2 and now Roebroeks et al 1 do not include any analysis of bone surface alterations or taphonomic features in their appraisal of site formation to defend their hypothesis. These papers are not characterized by a scientific basis or methodology and/or analysis, but mere opinions, insinuations and criticisms against the papers demonstrating hominin occupation at Untermassfeld.…”