Thomas Terberger

• Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage

Ethnographic records show wooden tools played a pivotal role in the daily lives of hunter-gatherers including food procurement tools used in hunting (e.g. spears, throwing sticks) and gathering (e.g. digging sticks, bark peelers), as well as, domestic tools (e.g. handles, vessels). However, wood rarely survives in the archaeological record, especia...

While there is substantial evidence for art and symbolic behaviour in early Homo sapiens across Africa and Eurasia, similar evidence connected to Neanderthals is sparse and often contested in scientific debates. Each new discovery is thus crucial for our understanding of Neanderthals’ cognitive capacity. Here we report on the discovery of an at lea...

Abstract In 2016, an archaeological excavation of approximately one hectare in area took place in Suddendorf, in the county of Bentheim, Lower Saxony, prior to the development of a residential area. The investigations revealed numerous hearth pits under a thick layer of ash dating to the Mesolithic period, as well as a Late Bronze and Early Iron Ag...

Ice Age Art or Modern Depiction? An Engraving of a Bovine on a Wall of New Red Sandstone in Reinhausen (Lkr. Göttingen). In 2014 the engraving of a bovine on a wall of new red sandstone in Reinhausen was reported and led to an interdisciplinary investigation by a working group. Especially the theme and style of the engraving threw up the question o...

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Until today there is limited evidence for Late Glacial sites in the Northwest of lower Saxony. Here we present the Ahrensburgian site of Edewecht 82-East, which was excavated by two amateurs in 1973/74. Unfortunately the quality of the excavation was limited, but the distribution of artefacts indicates a single find concentration. Small tanged poin...

The Einhorn-Höhle, located in the southern Harz Mountains, has been known as a find spot for animal bones dating to the last lce Age for centuries, with well-known nineteenth- and early twentieth-century researchers drawn to the cave to dig for evidence of glacial man. However, it was not until 1985, when individual artefacts dating to the Middle P...

The Great Shigir Idol discovered in 1890 in the course of a gold mining operation at the Shigir peat bog is the oldest known monumental wooden sculpture. In 2014 a team of archaeologists and scientists from Russia and Germany have undertaken a comprehensive study of idol. The original sculpture was 5.3 m high, the height of the surviving part was 3...

The Paleolithic site of Schöningen is famous for the earliest known, completely preserved wooden weapons. Here we present recent results of an ongoing analysis of the nine spears, one lance, a double pointed stick, and a burnt stick dating to the Holsteinian, c. 300 kyr. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses, as well as studies of thin sections, con...

Die Entdeckung der ältesten vollständig erhaltenen Holzwaffen des Menschen, die zwischen den Überresten von circa 25 Pferden gefunden wurden, hat die altsteinzeitliche Fundstelle Schöningen in den 1990er Jahren international bekannt gemacht. In den 300.000 Jahre alten Ablagerungen eines ehemaligen Seeufers im heutigen Niedersachsen blieben organi-s...

Pressemitteilung über die Entdeckung einer Säbelzahnkatze / Säbelzahntiger (Homotherium latidens) beim Fundplatz Schöningen (ca. 300.000 Jahre alt).

This article discusses the development and finds of a karst fissure in the Winter'scher Gipsbruch near Bad Köstritz (Lkr. Greiz). The site was detected in the early 19th century and the collection of Ice Age animal bones and human remains played a role in the discussion of early men at that time. The human remains from the von Schlotheim collection...

Two child burials were detected close to the Abri wall in the 1980s at Abri Bettenroder Berg IX (Lkr. Göttingen) and were attributed to the Mesolithic due to stratigraphical reasons and radiocarbon dating. New AMS-dates assign the burials to the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age. The results underline the rare evidence of inhumation graves in the Preborea...

We conclude this volume on Late Glacial research from the North European Plain and adjacent regions by reporting on a number of recent studies that also provide a context for reviewing current progress in this field. We begin by considering a number of unifying themes which characterise the study of the Late Glacial and are taken into account by ma...

AMS and other dating methods have been applied to the problem of Upper Palaeolithic occupation in Central Europe. The results from the excavations at the Rhineland site of Wiesbaden-Igstadt provide an opportunity for comparison and discussion of whether central Europe was really subject to abandonment at various times during Glacial/Pleniglacial ep...