Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum - Archaeological research institute

We identified and tested a novel aspect of human resilience: The daily pursuit of maintenance goals. Taking inspiration from archaeological records, which point at routinized cultural practices as a central resilience factor, we tested whether personal routine practices, governed by maintenance goals, serve a similar function to individuals as traditional practices do to societies. Namely, we hypothesized that maintenance striving increases individuals’ resilient responses to stressful events. Confirming this prediction, a longitudinal Study 1 showed that maintenance striving but not avoidance striving, predicted subsequent increases in well‐being following the third wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Germany. Study 2 confirmed our predictions on trait resilience and maintenance versus avoidance motivations in the household and relationship life domains in cross‐sectional data. These studies contribute to the understanding of resilience by demonstrating the benefits of maintenance goals for both situational and trait‐level resilience.

The vita of Archbishop Heribert of Cologne reports that after the collapse of the monastery church in Cologne-Deutz in 1000 AD, the Archbishop “hired experienced architects from abroad […] and entrusted them with the task of the entire construction site”. This is among the earliest evidence of a professional building organisation in Cologne. Numerous publications have appeared on the organisation of the Cologne building sites from the eleventh to the fifteenth century; these have discussed the several crafts, the construction process, and the building materials, among other topics. However, the historical sources are largely absent for the centuries before. Many building remains (especially churches) from the early Middle Ages have been excavated in Cologne. It has been shown that Roman buildings were recycled during this period and well into the High Middle Ages. This chapter compiles the most important findings of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods from about 100 years of city archaeology in Cologne. The focus is on the building materials and the construction techniques of the masonry as well as the extensive recycling of the Roman city.

Hedeby was the largest town in the Viking North. Investigations have identified imports at the site from central and northern Scandinavia revealing long-distance connections. The chronology of this trade, however, is unclear. Here, the authors use a typological-biomolecular approach to examine connections during the early Viking Age. The application of ZooMS to an assemblage of antler combs, stylistically dated to the ninth century AD, reveals nearly all were made of reindeer antler. As most craft production waste from Hedeby comprises red deer antler, it is argued that these combs were manufactured elsewhere, perhaps hundreds of kilometres further north. The results have implications for understanding of production and regional connectivity in early medieval Scandinavia.

This paper represents a study of archaeological fish remains retrieved from the excavations conducted by C. S. Phillips between 1993 and 2001 at Kalbāʾ 4 (Emirate of Sharjah, UAE). Kalbāʾ 4 is a major coastal site that was continuously occupied from the Umm an‐Nar period to the Iron Age (c. 2700–600 BCE). The site is of particular interest regarding monumental architecture, pottery studies and exchange networks across Arabia and its neighbouring regions from the Bronze Age onwards. A corpus of about 5500 fish remains provides information on fishing economies during the entire occupation of the site. Data regarding fish complement results previously obtained from the study of other fauna including marine molluscs, sea turtles, terrestrial and marine mammals. They allow us to document a fishing‐based economy at Kalbāʾ 4. The results highlight the exploitation of a quite limited range of fish taxa associated mostly with reef areas (groupers, trevallies, snappers, spangled emperors, King soldierbreams), brackish waters (mullets) and the open sea (scombrids). The techniques seem to have mainly involved the use of baited lines from boats, fishing nets and possibly cage traps. The discussion includes comparisons with the other main fish studies conducted for the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Eastern Arabia.

Nitrogen isotope ratio analysis (δ¹⁵N) of animal tissue is widely used in archaeology and palaeoecology to investigate diet and ecological niche. Data interpretations require an understanding of nitrogen isotope compositions at the base of the food web (baseline δ¹⁵N). Significant variation in animal δ¹⁵N has been recognised at various spatiotemporal scales and related to changes both in baseline δ¹⁵N, linked to environmental and climatic influence on the terrestrial nitrogen cycle, and animal ecology. Isoscapes (models of isotope spatial variation) have proved a useful tool for investigating spatial variability in biogeochemical cycles in present-day marine and terrestrial ecosystems, but so far, their application to palaeo-data has been more limited. Here, we present time-sliced nitrogen isoscapes for late Pleistocene and early Holocene Europe (c. 50,000 to 10,000 years BP) using herbivore collagen δ¹⁵N data. This period covers the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition, during which significant variation in the terrestrial nitrogen cycle occurred. We use generalized linear mixed modelling approaches for interpolation and test models which both include and exclude climate covariate data. Our results show clear changes in spatial gradients of δ¹⁵N through time. Prediction of the lowest faunal δ¹⁵N values in northern latitudes after, rather than during, the Last Glacial Maximum is consistent with the Late Glacial Nitrogen Excursion (LGNE). We find that including climatic covariate data does not significantly improve model performance. These findings have implications for investigating the drivers of the LGNE, which has been linked to increased landscape moisture and permafrost thaw, and for understanding changing isotopic baselines, which are fundamental for studies investigating diets, niche partitioning, and migration of higher trophic level animals.

Traceological studies aim at the recognition and the identification of use-wear traces on artefacts to gain a functional interpretation of past human technologies. However, the development of use-wear traces is known to be dependent on different mechanics involved, such as those related to the contact materials, but also to the tool raw material and morphology, the use intensity and the performed task. Therefore, an understanding of the fundamental mechanics affecting wear formation is necessary to build reliable interpretations based on causation. The cause-effect relationship between individual variables and the formation of use-wear can only be investigated by conducting controlled, second-generation experiments. To test individual variables, others have to be standardised. This applies, for instance, to the contact material. The here presented sequential second-generation experiment tested for differences between soft and hard contact materials. Simultaneously, this experiment aimed to validate the comparability of artificial and natural contact material as a standardised substitute, but also as an ethically more acceptable choice. Combined with qualitative and quantitative use-wear analyses, the data generated throughout the experiment did not only provide insights into the development of use-wear, but also into abrasion processes within the experimental setup. Concerning these aspects, no significant difference between the natural and artificial contact materials could be observed. Consequently, while not used as direct proxies to interpret wear on archaeological artefacts, the use of standardised contact materials can be an advantageous choice in controlled experimental setups. Moreover, the experiment highlights the relevance of use intensity and duration in the context of wear formation.

The paper focuses on the archaeometric analyses of the gold objects from the famous so-called ‘treasures’ of Troy and Poliochni on the island of Lemnos. Altogether 61 Early Bronze Age (EBA) gold objects dating between 2500 and 2000 BCE were investigated in this study. They were primarily sampled with a portable laser ablation (pLA) unit in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and analyzed with ICP-MS at the Curt-Engelhorn-Centre Archaeometry (CEZA) in Mannheim. The main advantage of this approach is the possibility to obtain samples on site without the necessity of transport. It is a minimally invasive method that leaves no visible damage on the objects. As an additional advantage there are no restrictions on the size of the objects under study. The central goal of the study was to obtain high-quality compositional analyses of gold objects from the sites Troy and Poliochni to investigate, if the typological similarity is paralleled by the elemental composition of the gold, including the trace elements. This would suggest not only similar procurement of the metal across these sites but also potential exchange of objects and/or specialist workers. In a second step, the results were compared with data from contemporary gold objects from Ur in southern Mesopotamia, from where LA-ICP-MS data have recently become available. Finally, a survey of such data for gold objects from gold-rich regions is used to narrow down the possible origin of Early Bronze Age gold in the Old World.

The scale-sensitive fractal analysis (SSFA) of dental microwear textures is traditionally performed using the software Toothfrax. SSFA has been recently integrated to the software MountainsMap® as an optional module. Meanwhile, Toothfrax support has ended. Before switching to the new module, the outputs between the two software packages must be compared for consistency. We have performed such a test using Bayesian modelling on three datasets including dental surfaces of sheep (Merceron, Ramdarshan, et al., 2016) and guinea pigs (Winkler, Schulz-Kornas, Kaiser, Cuyper, et al., 2019) from controlled feeding experiments, as well as surfaces of quartzite and flint flakes used in an actualistic archeological experiment on cleaning procedures (Pedergnana, Calandra, Bob, et al., 2020). We found that the two software packages calculate significantly different values for the SSFA parameters epLsar, Asfc, HAsfc9 and R2, even when the same settings are used. Nevertheless, the treatments (different diets or cleaning procedures) are discriminated similarly within each dataset. While the new software module is as good as the original software to differentiate treatments, our results imply that the outputs from the two software packages are not directly comparable and, as such, cannot be merged. Surface texture analysts should therefore consider re-analyzing published surfaces before integrating them in their studies.

Ice core and marine archives provide detailed quantitative records of last glacial climate changes, whereas comparable terrestrial records from the mid-latitudes remain scarce. Here we quantify warm season land-surface temperatures and precipitation over millennial timescales for central Europe for the period spanning 45,000–22,000 years before present that derive from two temporally overlapping loess-palaeosol-sequences, dated at high resolution by radiocarbon on earthworm calcite granules. Interstadial temperatures were 1–4 °C warmer than stadial climate, a temperature difference which is strongly attenuated compared to Greenland records. We show that climate in the Rhine Valley was significantly cooler during the warm season and overall drier with annual precipitation values reduced by up to 70% compared to the present day. We combine quantitative estimates with mesoscale wind and moisture transport modelling demonstrating that this region was dominated by westerlies and thereby inextricably linked to North Atlantic climate forcing, although ameliorated.

For decades, the relationship of pre-modern hominins to anatomically modern humans (AMH) and the transition from mode 3 to mode 4 industries remain topics of ongoing scientific debate. Over the last 20 years, different disciplines have added new data and much detail to these questions, highlighting the demographic and social and cultural complexity underlaying these major changes or turnovers in human evolution. As with most other regions outside Africa, archaeologists faced long-lasting discussions whether or not the central European archaeological record is to be understood as a regional transition from the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) to the Upper Palaeolithic (UP) or if it is characterised by the replacement of Neanderthal MP techno-complexes by industries of overall UP character imported by modern humans. These debates have been re-fuelled by the discoveries of new sites, of new hominin fossil remains and by aDNA studies pinpointing towards the arrival of AMH in Europe several millennia earlier than previously thought (Slimak et al., Science Advances,8, eabj9496, 2022; Hajdinjak et al., Nature,592, 253-257, 2021; Prüfer et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution,5, 820–825, 2021). Together with new radiometric age-estimates and detailed archaeological site studies, these developments call to recapture the present knowledge of the Late (LMP) and Final Middle Palaeolithic (FMP) of central Europe, viewed from the perspective of lithic technology and typology, raw material exploitation and land-use strategies. We will review and characterise this record as it represents the demographic and cultural substrate that AMH had met and will discuss to which degree this substrate contributed to the formation of the central European UP.

This article presents the results of a 2021 international online survey of 419 early career researchers in archaeology. Respondents were passionate about pursuing an academic career, but pessimistic about job and career prospects. Statistics highlight specific obstacles, especially for women, from unstable employment to inequitable practices, and a chronic lack of support. Over 180 open-ended comments reveal worrying levels of workplace bullying and discrimination, particularly targeting women and minorities. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on early career researchers is also examined. The survey's findings are analysed and contextualized within the international higher education sector. A communal effort is necessary to create sustained change, but early career researchers remain hopeful that change can be implemented.

This paper assesses the effects which the building of Hadrian's Wall had on the patterns of supply and communication from the continent. Existing systems were strengthened rather than altered, and Hadrian's reign saw the full development of ports and military installations on the North Sea and Channel coasts. Navigation to Britain and sailing conditions on various routes are discussed, comparing their importance in the transport of wine, oil, exotic plants and samian ware and the movement of military personnel. Use of the Rhône–Rhine axis is emphasised for the movement of goods from Central Gaul and the Mediterranean, but other rivers in western and north-western Gaul were of some importance, as the details of samian distribution demonstrate. Finally, non-state organisation of the acquisition and distribution of commodities supplied to the army on Hadrian's Wall is strongly favoured.

In this paper X-ray computed tomography imaging data is used to perform nondestructive tree-ring width measurements in three archaeological wooden samples. Measurements of the curvilinear-tree-ring widths are performed using two approaches: firstly, measuring manually the distance between two points on two consecutive tree-rings along two orthogonal radii and, secondly, using a recently proposed computational approach which averages all calculated pairwise radial distances between two consecutive tree-rings along the whole tree-ring profile. The results show that the irregularity of the tree-ring shape is an important factor to be considered in performing curvilinear-tree-ring measurements. For irregular shaped tree-rings, deviations up to 1.15 mm were observed between the output of both measurement’s approaches. It is concluded that tree-ring width measurements along only two orthogonal radial rays are not always accurate enough and therefore averaging along the whole tree-ring profile is recommended.

Ziel des Beitrages ist es, eine inter- und transdisziplinäre Verständigung zwischen Resilienzperspektiven der Psychologie und Archäologie anzustreben. Als hilfreich hat sich dazu eine sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektive erwiesen, die durch Hartmut Rosas Resonanzkonzept ein Brückenkonzept liefert, das zur Etablierung eines psycho-sozio-archäologischen Forschungsfeldes dienen kann. In diesem Artikel wird daher Resilienz als Resonanzfähigkeit im Sinne eines relationalen, affekttheoretischen Zugangs diskutiert.

The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania’s archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, resource exploitation, fire history, knapping objectives, and functionality. Taken together, Românești-Dumbrăvița I is the first well-contextualized archeological site in close spatiotemporal proximity to many early, well-preserved human fossils and in East-Central Europe.

In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years1. Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions2,3. Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around 7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably, LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectories than uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank4,5 cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation—proxies for these drivers—provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution. Examination of archaeological pottery residues and modern genes suggest that environmental conditions, subsistence economics and pathogen exposure may explain selection for lactase persistence better than prehistoric consumption of milk.

This document contains data sets of the valley depositions of the Loosbach valley and data of the Late Neolithic wetland site of Pestenacker. It consists of raw data and graphical figures of direct push-based electrical conductivity and colour logs and driving core recoveries as well as hand drilling recoveries presented by Köhler et al. ([1]). We reviewed unpublished archaeological profiles to determine the incision levels of former stream phases at Pestenacker site. Here, we provide the new, reusable and accessible data set. The data sets and figures of the valley depositions can be used for further analyses, including statistical ones, to improve the methods of the direct-push sensing and to compare it with the sedimentological features recovered from driving core and hand drillings. In addition, the data set is useful for further issues in Pestenacker as well as in the whole central Europe. Especially in the circum-Alpine region, as a comparison with other pile dwellings or stilt houses built from the Neolithic to the Bronce Age.

In a recent article, Lewis et al. (2020) advance the hypothesis that an increase in the marine fertility of Danish waters from ca. 7600 cal BP onwards fuelled an intensification in the marine economy and a fourfold population increase in the later Mesolithic period. This hypothesis is severely compromised by: (a) reliance on archaeological data from shell middens without reference to the multiple biases that operate differentially to distort quantitative inferences from such deposits, (b) selective use of stable isotope data obtained from human bone collagen and dates concerning marine technology, and (c) the assumption that human economic choices closely or necessarily track environmental change. We conclude that these biases cast doubt on the case for Late Mesolithic intensification and population increase, and that investigation of the undoubtedly complex interactions between environmental change and human response requires wider multidisciplinary collaboration, better integration and understanding of palaeoecological, archaeological, geoscientific and biomolecular datasets, better recognition of their limitations, greater attention to the differential taphonomic histories of archaeological sites and materials, and better articulation and evaluation of alternative hypotheses

Human expansion in the course of the Neolithic transition in western Eurasia has been one of the major topics in ancient DNA (aDNA) research in the last ten years. Multiple studies have shown that the spread of agriculture and animal husbandry from the Near East across Europe was accompanied by large-scale human expansions. Moreover, changes in subsistence and migration associated with the Neolithic transition have been hypothesized to involve genetic adaptation. Here we present high quality genome-wide data from the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK) site Derenburg Meerenstieg II (DER) (N=32 individuals) in Central Germany. Population genetic analyses show that the DER individuals carried predominantly Anatolian Neolithic-like ancestry and a very limited degree of local hunter-gatherer admixture, similar to other early European farmers. Increasing the LBK cohort size to ∼100 individuals allowed us to perform various frequency- and haplotype-based analyses to investigate signatures of selection associated with changes following the adoption of the Neolithic lifestyle. In addition, we developed a new method called AIMLESS (Admixture-informed Maximum-likelihood Estimation for Selection Scans) that allowed us test for selection signatures in an admixture-aware fashion. Focusing on the intersection of results from these selection scans, we identified various loci associated with immune function (JAK1, HLA-DQB1) and metabolism (LMF1, LEPR, SORBS1), as well as skin color (SLC24A5, CD82) and folate synthesis (MTHFR, NBPF3). Our findings shed light on the evolutionary pressures, such as infectious disease and changing diet, that were faced by the early farmers of Western Eurasia.