Breitenbach-schneidemühle, Ger Many: a Ma Jor Aurignacian Open Air Set Tle Ment in Cen Tral Eu Rope

Ab stract De spite its sig nif i cance for the un der stand ing of the Aurig na cian in terms of be hav ioural vari abil ity and adap tive strat e gies in north ern lat i tudes, the ar chae o log i cal ma te rial of Breitenbach has never been pub lished com pre hen sively for al most a cen tury since its dis cov ery in 1924. More over, de spite the fact that the ex ca va tion ex tends over ca. 400 m, mak ing it the larg est Aurig na cian site cur rently known, no spa tial anal y sis has ever been at tempted. This pa per endeavours to rem edy some of these short com ings. Be sides a de scrip tion of the main fea tures of the com plete lithic as sem blage from the early ex ca va tions, pro vid ing, for the first time, a spa tial anal y sis of the lithic as sem blage, backed up by re fits. Re sults in di cate that post depositional pro cesses lead to dis place ment and re lo ca tion of at least part of the ar chae o log i cal ma te rial and must be ac counted for when un der tak ing a re con struc tion of intra-site ac tiv ity pat terns. Nev er the less, an anal y sis of the tech no log i cal or ga ni za tion, in clud ing raw ma te rial use, in di cates a strat egy of “provisioning places” (sensu Kuhn, 1992). It is pro posed that Breitenbach cor re sponds to a site of res i den tial char ac ter, prob a bly re sult ing from an ac cu mu la tion of re peated sea sonal oc cu pa tion events over a lon ger time-span.