Bone staining in waterlogged deposits: a preliminary contribution to the interpretation of near-shore find accumulation at the Schöningen 13II-4 ‘Spear-Horizon’ site, Lower Saxony, Germany

Abstract

The Schöningen 13II-4 ‘Spear Horizon’ site is famous for the excellent preservation of 300,000-year-old Palaeolithic hunting weapons, including nine wooden spears and a lance, deposited on the shores of a former interglacial lake in association with a large assemblage of well-preserved and butchered animal bones, mainly from horse. Some bones show distinct areas of dark staining, thought to be derived from contact with decaying plant remains along the shores of the lake. It was decided to test this theory and try to determine experimentally where bone staining was most likely to occur on the littoral zone. Modern horse and cow bones were fastened along parallel transects at two locations and the installations were left for several months. Black stains appeared on some bones in the shallows, but not on bones deposited on permanently dry land or in deeper water. Within the 10 m wide band of bones in the main concentration at the Schöningen site, there is a high incidence of bone staining, indicating accumulation of finds along a shallow lake margin. By using GIS, additional clusters of stained bones in the eastern part of the site were revealed and may indicate shorelines when water levels in the lake were lower.

Keywords:

• Schöningen
• bone staining
• waterlogging
• littoral zones
• actualistic
• GIS

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mr. Oberdreis, Fürstlich Wiedische Rentkammer (Neuwied) for informing us about the fishing-lakes and for his aid at the Dierdorf site. Mr. Barz (Ross Schlachterei, Neuwied) provided us with horse bones for the experiments and the cow bones were provided by Mr. Siegel (Landschlachterei Siegel, Kleinmaischeid). Nicole Viehöver (Monrepos) refined the figures. The faunal remains from Schöningen were loaned to Monrepos by the Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege in Hanover. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our colleagues in that office, in particular, Prof. Dr. Stefan Winghart and Prof. Dr. Thomas Terberger, for their support. We were able to improve this article following comments from two anonymous reviewers, to whom we give our thanks. Finally, we would like to thank Christiane Denys and Jean Philippe Brugal for organising the IVth. ICAZ Taphonomy Working Group Meeting and for the possibility to participate at this conference.