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Science Forum Index » Archaeology Forum » Ice Age Atlantis? Exploring the Solutrean-Clovis ‘ connection’
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| Eric Stevens... |
 Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 9:21 pm |
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On Sun, 04 May 2008 14:43:28 +1200, Eric Stevens
<eric.stevens at (no spam) sum.co.nz> wrote:
Quote: On Sat, 3 May 2008 06:33:47 -0700 (PDT), Lee Olsen
paleocity at (no spam) hotmail.com> wrote:
--- snip ----
particularly
when Solutrean boat engineering was known to be non-existent.
I remember reading somewhere of evidence for hunting of moose/reindeer
in lakes and swamps with the hypothesis that the hunters used boats
made from inflated deer skin. What I am not certain of is whether or
not this could have applied to solutreans.
For the time being I have been freed of the pressure of work which has
plagued me for more than the previous year. I have been able to track
down my half-remembered source to a draft paper prepared by Peter
Fletcher, an email acquaintance of mine. Peter has been so kind as to
send me a later version of his still not completed paper and to give
me permission to quote from it. Peter has identified what he believes
to be clear evidence for skin boats (not inflatable as I remembered).
His argument starts with the findings of Alfred Rust, a German
archaeologist, when in 1932 he discovered Late Palaeolithic reindeer
hunting camps and scattered remains at Meinendorf and Stellmore (c.
12,600 to 10,000 BP), just a few kilometres northeast of Hamburg.
"These sites are situated within the Ahrensburg tunnel valley,
which during that period lay a little south of the receding glacier
front. The valley held a series of melt-water lakes that in turn
fed into the course of today's River Elbe. The term ‘tunnel'
derives from the much earlier activity of melt-water carving its
way beneath the valley's glacier. In some places soil even
covered the ice.
Since this initial find Rust and others discovered additional
assemblages and, although some of the original artefacts were
lost in the Second World War, an impressive set of finds have
been analysed and recorded. These include: butchered animal
bones (particularly reindeer), tools (flint and antler), and
weapons (flint projectile points and arrows heads).
It is important to clarify that Rust nor any of the subsequent site
archaeologists have ever claimed that these Late Palaeolithic
hunters ever used boats.
Prof. John Gowlett in his book ‘Ascent to Civilization' 1992 wrote
"Some of the reindeer shoulder-blades had been pierced
through by weapons, which struck the same spot so unerringly".
This intriguing statement was based on Rust's original analysis of
bone lesions resulting from hunting."
At this point Fletcher shows photographs of the 'bone' lesions which
do give the impression that the shoulder blades had a target painted
on them which the hunters never missed by more than two or three
centimetres.
At this point Fletcher asks the rhetorical question:
"Could such wounds, so accurately delivered to the shoulders of
the wild reindeer, have been inflicted from the proximity of a
boat whilst these agile land animals were in the water?"
In support of the argument that the deer were indeed hunted from boats
Fletcher goes on to write::
"Since Rust's early work various further analyses have taken place
including surveys reported in papers of Prof. Bodil Bratlund:
(a) ‘A Study of Hunting Lesions Containing Flint Fragments on
Reindeer Bones at Stellmoor, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 1991
and (b) A Survey of the Subsistence and Settlement Pattern of the
Hamburgian Culture in Schleswig-Holstein, 1994.
Prof. Bodil Bratlund has inherited Rust's mantle and is the
acclaimed expert on these sites. In his paper (a) on hunting
lesions of the wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) he points out that
both fatal and healed wounds appeared more widespread than just
the shoulder blades but "with the upper part of the reindeer
showing most of the recognisable lesions".
Bratlund further states ‘The lesions of the neck and shoulders
predominantly originate behind and above at quite acute (rear)
angles". He goes on to record that "The shots from behind consist
of a group coming not only from extreme positions from behind, ie
from more than 135o, but also some from more than 30o from above.
These shots are all found in the neck and shoulders". An
interesting statement of Bratlund's is that "the only possibility
is that the reindeer were situated below the hunters".
With regard to some of the weapons that were used, Bratlund states
"The large number of arrows found in the lake sediments would be
in good agreement with the picture of shooting at swimming
reindeer. Since arrows have rarely been found outside Stellmoor,
even in other large lakeside deposits with good conditions of
preservation, these can hardly be considered normal site-waste".
From this Fletcher leads into:
"A truly remarkable find supports the existence of skin boats during
the Ahrensburgian Culture.
This claim is made by Dr. Detlev Ellmers, the recently retired
Director of the German Maritime Museum at Bremerhaven.
Dr. Ellmers sets out his claim in two documents: -
(a) Ein Fellboot-Fragment der Ahrensburger Kulture aus Husum,
Schleswig-Holstein? – Offa 37, 1980.
(b) The beginning of Boatbuilding in Central Europe. The Earliest
Ships, Conway Maritime Press, 1996
Ellmers first points out that even by the eighteenth millennium BP,
Palaeolithic man of central Europe's Magdalenian culture were
catching fish (discarded bones), making fishing hooks/ harpoons
(worked bone and antler) and sewing skin clothing (needle in use).
In other words man was mastering skills thousands of years in
advance of when they would contribute to the adoption of skin boats
in Late Palaeolithic cultures of northern Germany.
Ellmers remarkable find is a reindeer antler section that he
speculates has been worked into the form of boat rib. It was found
at Husum, in Schleswig-Holstein about 120 kilometres North West
from Rust's Ahrensburg Tunnel Valley.
Experts at the German Maritime Museum, Bermerhaven were keen
to develop this idea and reconstructed a full size two-man skin
boat.
As a boat model they used rock carved images taken from Evenshus
in the Trondheim Fiord on Norway's harsh central Atlantic coast.
Although these carvings originate from a much later period they
provide tantalising evidence of man using Eskimo-type craft to hunt
dolphin.
Kayak and umiak construction techniques, that must go back
thousands of years, were adopted. These included lashing flexible
wooden longitudinal members with leather thongs around the shaped
ribs. Watertight seams in the skin covering were also made after
the patterns of Eskimo boats.
Even the needles used to sew the hides were made from antler
modelled on forms found at Palaeolithic archaeological sites. It
was interesting that it was found necessary to frequently sharpen
the antler needle points during the sewing operation. Through trial
and error the wooden formers were changed out from pine to birch
to provide an optimum material.
The result was a sound craft able to safely carry two men complete
with a large array of hunting and fishing equipment. It should be
noted, however, that such a boat would totally perish within just a
few tens or hundreds of years."
--- etc
Eric Stevens |
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