Ergebnisse einer Suche nach Aurignacien- und Magdalénien-Fundstellen in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Abstract

Results of a search for Aurignacian and Magdalenian sites in North Rhine-Westphalia

Investigations within the Collaborative Research Centre 806 »Our Way to Europe: Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary« of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft led to the discovery of new sites of the Aurignacian and Magdalenian in North Rhine-Westphalia. The investigations were conducted in close cooperation with the Rhenish and Westphalian cultural heritage management as well as with numerous local history researchers. After summarising the current state of research in the region, the newly discovered sites are discussed in detail and interpreted in the context of the Aurignacian and Magdalenian settlement pattern in the area under investigation. Eventually, a systematic review of private archaeological collections almost doubled the number of known Upper Palaeolithic sites in North Rhine-Westphalia within three years. With regard to the Aurignacian and Magdalenian, the potential to discover new sites seems comparably large for the former, whereas for the latter the overall picture only changed in a minor way.