Jehanne Affolter

Archaeological surveys and excavations from 2005 to 2023 in the municipality of Muotathal have so far revealed nine
Mesolithic sites with radiocarbon-dated charcoal and faunal remains, as well as typologically identifable silices. The
differing topographical situations of the sites and fnd assemblages make it possible to propose a modelled reconstruction of land usage by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups in the mountainous Alpine study area. Base camps, campsites
at passages obligés and hunting observation posts visited in summer or autumn can be identifed. In winter, groups of
people probably remained on the Swiss Plateau. Determination of siliceous raw materials provides evidence of contacts
and exchange systems involving the Central Plateau, the Jura, the Alpine Rhine Valley and southern Alpine regions.
Palaeoethnobotanical, osteological, anthracological and malacological investigations additionally provide valuable data
regarding the climate, environment and anthropogenic supply strategies.

In the summers of 2020 and 2021, a team of archaeologists and palaeoecologists examined the “Flözerbändli” site, a rocky overhang located directly above the right bank of the River Muota at an elevation of 740 m a.s.l. The excavations unearthed Early Mesolithic layers which yielded charcoal fragments from the period between 9746 and 8294 BC, stone artefacts including projectile points, as well as animal bones and archaeoethnobotanical remains. A remarkable find was a red deer antler fragment dating from between 10519 and 10028 BC which was decorated with regular rows of pit marks. Late Palaeolithic finds such as this are extremely rare. Various other Mesolithic sites have also been discovered in the municipal area of Muotathal.

Le phénomène minier, dont les prémices émergent en Europe dès le
Mésolithique, prend une ampleur inédite à partir de la fin du Ve millénaire.
On examinera plus particulièrement deux ensembles miniers situés à l’est
du Bassin parisien : celui localisé dans le Pays d’Othe dans la vallée de la
Vanne (Aube) et celui des Marais de Saint-Gond, dans la Marne. L’objectif est de comparer ces deux complexes, dont les silex exploités présentent des signatures pétrographiques spécifiques, afin d’en tirer des informations sur l’organisation de la production minière dans l’Est parisien. Certains points communs existent, par exemple, l’ampleur de l’extraction minière répartie sur plusieurs sites, la durée d’exploitation sur près de deux millénaires, la production de pièces bifaciales de type hache ou encore une fonction sociale importante relative aux phases d’apprentissage de la taille du silex sur place. L’utilisation d’un outillage minier spécifique en bois de cerf constitue un autre point de convergence. Cependant, par de nombreux aspects, les deux régions montrent des divergences qui en font leur particularité : plus ou moins grande variété de silex disponible, différence dans la stabilité des terrains nécessitant des systèmes d’extraction adaptés, volumes des restes de taille laissés sur place, etc. Dans l’avenir, une approche socio-économique des productions minières pourra être proposée, notamment à partir de la caractérisation pétrographique des silex, ce qui permettra de mieux en cerner la diffusion

Under the title “Continuity and Discontinuity: Mesolithic Silex Technology and Raw Material Supply at Haspelmoor in the Upper Bavarian Foothills of the Alps”, we present the 4th volume of the Mesolithic Edition, Robert Graf’s doctoral thesis, which was supervised by Professor Dr Amei Lang at the Institute for Prehistoric Archaeology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. This book is also the 4th publication in our series that is devoted to the Mesolithic period in Bavaria.



Robert Graf’s research on silex inventories from four Mesolithic sites in northern Upper Bavaria is presented here in a concise form. It is of vital importance with regard to the results, but also from a methodological point of view. His investigations mainly focused on technological analyses and experiments on production techniques as well as the chronological evaluation of the artefacts with regard to their specific typology and raw material by means of probability calculations.

These investigations would not have been possible without the mineralogical and petrographic analysis of the raw material of all silex artefacts, which was conducted by Dr Jehanne Affolter from Neuchâtel (Switzerland). Her results play an important part in the chronological differentiation of the inventories, and they show the local subsistence strategies and the wide range of contacts of the Mesolithic people from Haspelmoor. Apart from the use of local and regional raw materials of silex, some artefacts were identified as exotic variants such as Nordic chalk flint, silex from Tricino, and an artefact made of obsidian from the island of Melos in the Aegean.

The results of the detailed pollen analysis of a 450 cm thick profile, which were presented by Dr Michael Peters (member of the palaeobotany workgroup at the aforementioned Institute for Prehistoric Archaeology in Munich), proved to be the best evidence for a more or less continual use of the immediate environment of today’s Haspelmoor.

Since the early Preboreal, and especially during the Boreal and early Atlantic period, the human impact on the landscape became obvious because of a high quantity of charcoal particles that were discovered in the pollen spectra. The existence of cereal pollen is proven from about 5700 BC. The occurrence of cereals is accompanied by a high concentration of charcoal and various human impact indicators. As a result, the debate about the so-called “Pre-Neolithic cereal cultivation”, which has been going on since the 1970s, will be relaunched with the latest data.

Unter dem Titel „Kontinuität und Diskontinuität: Mesolithische Silextechnik und Rohstoffversorgung am Haspelmoor im oberbayerischen Alpenvorland“ legen wir mit dem 4. Band der Edition Mesolithikum die Dissertation von Robert Graf vor, die am Institut für Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München von Frau Prof. Dr. Amei Lang betreut wurde. Das vorliegende Buch ist gleichzeitig die 4. Veröffentlichung in unserer Reihe, die der Mittelsteinzeit in Bayern gewidmet ist.



Die in knapper Form dargestellten Forschungen von Robert Graf an den Silexinventaren von vier mesolithischen Fundstellen im nördlichen Oberbayern, sind nicht nur in Bezug auf die Ergebnisse, sondern auch in methodischer Hinsicht von großer Bedeutung. Seine Untersuchungen konzentrierten sich vor allem auf technologische Analysen und Experimente zur Herstellungstechnik sowie auf die typologisch-rohmaterialspezifische chronologische Auswertung der Artefakte mithilfe von Wahrscheinlichkeitsberechnungen.

Ohne die mineralogisch-petrographische Bestimmung der Rohstoffe aller Silices durch Dr. Jehanne Affolter aus Neuchâtel (Schweiz), wären solche Untersuchungen nicht möglich gewesen. Ihre Ergebnisse tragen wesentlich zur chronologischen Differenzierung der Inventare bei und zeigen die lokalen Versorgungsstrategien und die weiträumigen Kontakte der Mesolithiker vom Haspelmoor an. Neben der Nutzung lokaler und regionaler Silexrohmaterialien wurden auch wenige Artefakte aus exotischen Varianten wie nordischem Kreidefeuerstein, Feuerstein aus dem Tessin und ein Artefakt aus Obsidian von der Insel Melos in der Ägäis identifiziert.

Eine mehr oder weniger kontinuierliche Nutzung des unmittelbaren Umfeldes des heutigen Haspelmoores wird am besten durch die Ergebnisse der detailierten Pollenanalyse eines 450 cm Mächtigkeit umfassenden Profils von Dr. Michael Peters (Arbeitsgruppe Paläobotanik, ebenfalls Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie München) bewiesen. Seit dem frühen Präboreal, besonders aber im Boreal und frühen Atlantikum, wird der human impact auf die Landschaft durch einen hohen Anteil von Holzkohlepartikeln in den Pollenspektren deutlich. Ab etwa 5700 v.Chr. sind Getreidepollen nachgewiesen. Das Vorkommen von Getreiden geht mit starken Holzkohleanreicherungen sowie diversen Kulturanzeigern einher. Damit wird die seit den 1970er Jahren andauernde Diskussion um den sog. „Vorneolithischen Getreideanbau“ mit aktuellen Daten erneut in Gang gesetzt werden.

In this study, the path of the raw material silicite (cf. flint/chert etc.) from its extraction in the mine to its disposal is analysed in detail. On the basis of over 32,000 archaeological finds and with the inclusion of various integrative investigation methods, the question of whether the archaeological data provides evidence of production processes based on the division of labour is investigated. In combination with archaeological and ethnographic comparative data, the data collected in this way is used as a basis for the reconstruction of prehistoric supply networks and the social structures of the time. The result is a picture of a Neolithic society in the northern foothills of the Alps that was organised in part by the division of labour, widely networked and highly adaptable.

The present volume, last in a series of five devoted to the Merovingian hamlet of Develier-Courtételle (Canton Jura, Switzerland),
consists of three distinct parts. The spatial analysis of the site is
the subject of the first section. The second section contains a discussion of the historic and regional context of the site, as well as
an  account  of  its  organisation  and  evolution.  The  final  section
presents the roman remains discovered during the excavation.
Located within the Jura mountain range at an altitude of 450 m,
the site lies on the banks of the brook “La Pran”, in a lateral valley
of the Delémont basin. A campaign of archaeological test trenching, prompted by the construction of the A16 motorway, led to the
discovery of this rural settlement. Some 3,5 ha of its surface were
excavated between 1993 and 1997 by the Section d’archéologie et
paléontologie of the Office de la culture (chap. 1).
The first section of the volume, which presents the spatial analysis
of the artefact scatters, opens with a short introduction (chap. 2).
The following chapter discusses the theory and method of intrasite spatial analysis, complete with a review of its role in Swiss
archaeology during the past 25 years (chap. 3). The specific circumstances conditioning the spatial analysis of this particular site are the subject of the following chapter (chap. 4) : how did the chosen
excavation and analytical methods, the differential conservation
of sedimentary layers and objects influence the observed artefact
scatters ? A detailed examination of the distribution of tile and
baked daub fragments (chap. 5) and of faunal remains (chap. 6)
precedes a short review of the spatial analyses of other artefact
classes,  published  in  previous  volumes  of  the  series  (chap.  7).
The  next  chapter  contains  a  synthesis  of  the  spatial  analysis  of
all  artefact  categories,  presented  separately  for  each  farmstead
and activity area (chap. 8). The last chapter of this first section
of  the  volume  discusses  the  contribution  of  spatial  analysis  to
the reconstruction of the organisation and evolution of the site.
Patterning resulting from the erstwhile presence of walls and enclosures reveals the existence of otherwise undocumented structures.  The  horizontal  distribution  of  dated  artefacts  completes
our knowledge of the chronological relationships between different buildings, activity areas and farmsteads. The detailed analysis
of artefact scatters also highlights differences in discard behaviour
between the various parts of the settlement (chap. 9).
The second section of the volume opens with a review of the general historical context of the site and an analysis of the political
situation in the Jura region during early medieval times (chap. 10).
Sources describing local events are treated with particular attention. An overview of the regional archaeological record places the
establishment  of  the  hamlet  within  a  larger  settlement  pattern
(chap. 11). The site was inhabited well before the foundation of
the monastery of Moutier-Grandval. Its occupation coincides with
a phase of demographic growth documented over much of the Jura
mountain range. The following general synthesis (chap. 12) draws
on  the  results  of  a  large  spectrum  of  analyses  of  features,  finds
and ecofacts. A concise description of the main characteristics of
each farmstead and activity area forms the foundation for a panoramic representation of the evolution of the settlement, beginning
with the founding of the three oldest farmsteads during the last
decades of the 6th century. The hamlet reaches its maximum size
before the middle of the 7th century. A major upheaval, dated to
the last quarter of the same century, leads to the desertion of the
eastern half of the settlement. The two western farmsteads, which
continue to function on their own for several decades, are in turn
abandoned around the middle of the 8th century (fig. 87).
Agriculture, animal husbandry and textile production are important  components  of  the  economy  throughout  site  occupation.
Ironworking is of central importance from the beginning of the
settlement. Raw iron, brought onto the site as bloom, was refined
and transformed into finished objects. This produced a considerable  surplus  of  metal  objects,  probably  for  export,  until  ironworking ceased during the period of upheaval marking the late
7th century. Different archaeometric analyses reveal the presence
of numerous imported objects and the existence of an extensive
exchange network. They shed light on the site’s place within the
local and regional economy. The chapter ends with a discussion
of the demography and social structure of the settlement, constrained  by  the  limits  of  the  archaeological  evidence.  The  next
chapter, last of those dealing with the Merovingian hamlet, examines its position within a larger regional framework (chap. 13).
The  foundation  of  the  site  occurs  against  the  backdrop  of  a
regional boom of iron smelting during the 6th century. The partial abandonment of the settlement, which coincides with the end
of ironworking, may have been caused by one of several documented  political  crises  of  the  late  7th  century.  Less  is  know  of
the context surrounding the end of the occupation of the western
farmsteads towards the middle of the 8th century.
The last section of the volume is concerned with the roman remains found during the excavation. The few and rather modest
features dating to this period include a complex of clay extraction
pits and a short road segment (chap. 14). The pottery, dating for
the most part from the 1st and 2nd centuries, consists mainly of
residual objects found in medieval contexts ; only a few sherds
were discovered within the roman features (chap. 15). This also
holds true for the small group of iron objects (chap. 16). Both
assemblages are described in detail. A short synthesis correlates
these different strands of evidence and presents a few conclusions
on the occupation of the site and its surrounding areas during
roman times (chap. 17).

Beyond the Great Lakes. Archaeology and conservation of the Neolithic Unesco World Heritage Site Seedorf, Lobsigesee.

The site at Seedorf, Lobsigesee is situated on the edge of a small bog lake between Aarberg and Lyss in Canton Bern. The location of the settlement site away from the large lakes of the Jura region and their numerous extensively examined lakeside settlements makes it particularly interesting and was one of the reasons why it was inscribed on the list of Unesco World Heritage Sites as part of “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps” in 2011.
It was known from numerous scatter finds and from excavations carried out in 1908/09 and again in 1953 that a Neolithic settlement stood on Lake Lobsige, whose preservation was increasingly threatened by drainage works undertaken in the bog to facilitate farming in the area.
In 2005 and 2007, the Archaeological Service of Canton Bern (ADB) carried out archaeological coring on the shoreline of the lake and mounted rescue excavations over an area of 75 m2. The aim was to evaluate the state of preservation of the finds and features with a view to developing an archaeological site monitoring project for the protection of such settlements, to record the settlement remains in the areas most at risk of drying out and to recover the finds. Sieving and soil samples for archaeobiological and geoarchaeological examination were also taken.
This book presents the results of an analysis of the finds and features recorded in the test trenches and excavations undertaken in 2005
and 2007, most of which were obtained between 2009 and 2011 as part of a Master’s thesis submitted to the University of Basel and of a research project run by the ADB. It provides an overview of the archaeological, archaeobiological, palaeoecological and hydrological insight gained on the Neolithic site on Lake Lobsige and establishes connections between the findings made by the individual disciplines. Initially the main focus was on presenting the finds and features and on learning as much as possible about the history of the settlement. Analysis of the archaeological and archaeobiological finds allowed us to trace the changes that occurred in the lifestyles of the community on Lake Lobsige and identify how they were integrated into the different regional and supra-regional networks that existed at the time.
Another focal point was the site monitoring project which aimed to evaluate the state of preservation of the site and to prepare for its future
protection. The analysis presented here also involved examining the state of preservation and level of water saturation of the layers excavated in 2005 and 2007. As well as hydrological and geoarchaeological aspects, archaeobiological indicators were also taken into account for the first time; these were brought to bear when it came to answering questions of preservation, as different states of preservation had been recorded and examined for organic and inorganic
materials within the archaeological layers.

The remains of an Early and Middle Neolithic settlement were examined in an area of over 3000 m2 on the western edge of Gächlingen from 2001 to 2006. The site was severely threatened by modern agriculture and yielded the first ever settlement features from the Linearbandkeramik Culture found on Swiss soil.
Though the structures were badly damaged by erosion and crop farming, the remains of at least 23 Neolithic buildings were uncovered. Unfortunately, the settlement history could only be partially reconstructed because many of the features had been so severely damaged during the long history of settlement and as a result of erosion, modern farming and bioturbation. This had also led to considerable commingling of the pit assemblages, which meant that it was not possible to build a detailed reconstruction of the settlement’s development.

The excavations carried out so far have only uncovered a small section of the area that was originally covered by the prehistoric settlement. The surface finds that were scattered around the excavated trenches suggested that many more archaeological features must still be hidden below ground, which may yet change the current picture we have of the Neolithic settlement at Gächlingen.
Judging by the Early Neolithic pottery, Gächlingen was one of the earliest examples of a farming settlement in the High Rhine area. The decorations and fabric of the Linearbandkeramik pottery suggest that the settlers had moved to Gächlingen from the River Neckar region. It is not yet clear if the indigenous people they encountered upon their arrival had already adopted the Neolithic lifestyle or whether they were still Late Mesolithic hunters and gatherers.

A collection of sherds that belonged to the western European pottery tradition is of particular interest. It finds its closest parallels in the pottery of the La Hoguette type, but clearly sets itself apart, mainly by virtue of its rather peculiar decorative style. Its relative-chronological position as compared to Linearbandkeramik ware must remain open for the time being because of the problems with the archaeological context at Gächlingen. Analyses of clay samples, however, did at least show that the pottery had been made from local materials and that therefore it had not been imported in the context of cultural contacts.

Whilst unfortunately we cannot make any statements about the economy (crop farming, animal husbandry) of the Gächlingen farming community because of the poor preservation conditions for organic materials, geoarchaeological examinations of soil columns showed that the Early Neolithic soils in the Klettgau region had probably not been overly fertile. It would therefore have required a significant effort on the part of the settlers to produce a good yield.

Numerous lithic artefacts recovered from the site provided a rare glimpse into how the natural resources that were available in the region had been used at the time. This allowed us to make a detailed reconstruction of the use of flint deposits available in the region. Thanks to extensive geological surveys carried out on site and subsequent microfacial analyses it was possible to localise and characterise the individual deposits quite closely. We were also able to almost completely reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of flint production. The most striking insight was that the Gächlingen farming community had obviously used various deposits and had worked the raw materials using techniques specifically modified to suit the local flint. Another very interesting discovery was that raw materials from deposits south of the River Rhine had been processed at Gächlingen, which suggests that there were functioning communication networks in the region. The evidence also suggested that surplus was produced at the site, which could have been supplied to neighbouring regions.

The analysis of the rock artefacts yielded interesting information. The raw material used to make the axe blades, for instance, does not appear to have been sourced locally. The closest deposits were located in the Hegau region (basalt) and in the southern Black Forest area (so-called knotenschiefer or nodular shale). Other materials may have been brought to Gächlingen from even further afield. The raw materials used to make querns or grinding stones, on the other hand, came from local natural deposits, from the area around Schleitheim and the neighbouring Wutach Valley, just under 5 km from the site as the crow flies. Unworked quernstone blanks found at the settlement suggest that large stones had been brought to the site as raw or half-finished objects which were then further worked on site to create serviceable implements.

Numerous pieces of evidence suggested that Gächlingen must have played an important role within the Early Neolithic regional settlement landscape; the site may even have served as a central place. Besides the Linearbandkeramik settlement traces, remains of Middle Neolithic, Urnfield-period, La Tène-period, Roman and early medieval settlements also came to light on the western edge of Gächlingen. Certain sherds could also point to the presence of a Late Neolithic settlement.

The intensive settlement activity on site shows that over the course of several thousand years Gächlingen was one of the most favoured places to settle in the region and that the choice of location for the first settlement had obviously not been a coincidence. Although it was not possible due to the poor preservation conditions to answer numerous questions regarding the chronology and history of the settlement, the finds and features from Gächlingen have nevertheless allowed us to gain considerable new insight into the lifestyle of the earliest farmers in the High Rhine region. A completely new light has thus been shone on the Neolithisation of the northern foothills of the Alps. Future discoveries and research will complete this rather sketchy picture and extend the chapter on the changeover from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of sedentary farming with the addition of numerous important aspects as yet unknown.

Flint and chert are non-detrital siliceous rocks with a conchoidal fracture and were some of the most important raw materials used by Stone Age people. In the greater Schaffhausen area the earliest archaeological evidence of the use of these raw materials dates back to the Late Palaeolithic (Magdalenian). Chert artefacts are also frequently found in Neolithic settlements throughout the region. Although the archaeological excavations in Canton Schaffhausen yielded a huge body of indigenous chert, hardly anything was known about the background of chert extraction and its circulation mechanisms. Based on three Late Neolithic open air sites that had yielded above-average amounts of knapped chert, an attempt was ma- de to examine more closely the economic significance of the Schaffhausen chert deposits in the period between 4400 and 3800 BC. The main question was whether there was any evidence pointing to a division of labour in terms of the acquisition, distribution and working of the raw chert and whether conclusions could be drawn concerning the economic network in the High Rhine / Lake Constance region.
The first step towards answering these questions was to compile a systematic record of the natural chert deposits within the region. This inventory served as a basis for an advanced micropalaeontological study which aimed to characterise the individual raw materials. The insight gained made it possible to precisely identify the conditions under which the individual chert nodules had been deposited and to reconstruct and create a model for the palaeogeography of the region during the Upper Malm. This in turn enabled us to associate rather precisely the archaeological finds with particular raw material deposits.
At the same time the archaeological finds recovered from the three Schaffhausen sites were critically evaluated, typologically studied and technologically analysed. This study revealed that although their composition had significantly changed due to various external factors they were very similar in many ways. It is therefore highly likely that the three assemblages were the products of the same technological cultural tradition.
The microfacial analysis of a random sample of chert artefacts from various lakeside settlements of the Hornstaad Group in the Lake Constance region showed that these settlements’ basic chert requirements were almost completely met by regional deposits. Raw material imported from further afield was extraordinarily rare and may not have been directly linked to the basic requirements of the settlements. This in turn is evidence in support of the hypothesis that the lakeside settlements studied could easily be supplied with chert from regional deposits without having to acquire more flint and chert from far-away deposits in order to satisfy the demand for raw materials.

Extending over approximately eight hectares, the site Büttenhardt-Zelg played a prominent role in the supply of raw material to the surrounding areas, as this was an unusually large activity area, the size of which was many times greater than that of the lakeside settlements at the time. It is quite likely that the location, regardless of its remoteness, once served as a regional centre. As the micropalaeontological raw material analysis revealed, the chert nodules had been transported from various outcrops to Büttenhardt-Zelg, where they had been skilfully broken down and then some of the flakes fashioned into tools. Based on the composition of the chert assemblage, it was concluded that the higher-quality flakes were passed on to third parties. A direct comparison between the chert assemblages from the Schaffhausen sites and those from the contemporary lakeside settlements on Lake Constance in fact supports this theory, since cores are considerably underrepresented in the latter. Various clues suggest that the working of the chert material took place in stages and that mainly blanks and prefabricated tools were passed on to the inhabitants of the lakeside settlements and only rarely raw material. The archaeological findings therefore clearly point to some form of division of labour, the details of which, however, are not yet clear. This result is of great interest because a recent study carried out at Hornstaad-Hörnle IA, one of the wetland settlements in the region, was able to show that there had been a division of labour in the jewellery making process there. A prerequisite for the manufacture of beads was the fabrication of the drills required, which would therefore represent the start of the production chain.
In order to understand the palaeoeconomic conditions of the Neolithic distribution systems it is of particular interest to take a closer look at the unique borderline situation that existed between the cultural areas of the Hornstaad Group with its Danubian influences and the Cortaillod Culture with its orientation towards the western Mediterranean. The analyses currently available have shown that this border situation between the High Rhine and Lake Zurich regions must have had a significant influence on the geographical distribution of the raw chert material extracted from the natural deposits in both cultural areas. Accordingly, only a very small number of chert artefacts from the region of the Cortaillod Culture found their way to Lake Constance. The same phenomenon can be observed in the opposite direction. This can only be explained by the hypothesis that the passing on of regional raw chert material must have been to a great extent socially motivated (‘ce- remonial exchange of goods’) and that cultural aspects apparently were a particularly important part of this. At the same time, the hypothesis refutes a commercial background to the exchange of raw materials (‘for-profit trade’). It still remains unclear what role goods imported over great distances (shells, display axes, exogenous flint and chert artefacts, copper tools etc.) played in this system. These individual items may have been exchanged through completely different networks. Such imports transported over many hundreds of kilometres are nevertheless outstanding pieces of evidence for the far-reaching communication networks that existed in the early stages of the Late Neolithic, and in some ways stood in contrast to the more regionally orientated supply lines for the indigenous chert material.

Analysis of prehistoric lithic artefacts helps to answer a wide array of questions concerning archaeological contexts and prehistoric human behaviour. During three projects, we studied the origin of the raw materials of 32 inventories from the Late Glacial and Early Holocene in northwest and southern Germany. The basal petrographic analysis was conducted by the geologist and petro-archaeologist Jehanne Affolter. In addition, data of more than 60 published assemblages from Switzerland as well as western and southern Germany were recorded. The origin of lithic raw materials from most of these inventories was determined using the microfacial method. GIS-based maps of the raw material sources from the aforementioned regions are compiled and raw material catchment areas of the Stone Age sites are mapped. The area calculations of the raw material catchments revealed a diachronic alternation of larger and smaller areas, which above all suggest culturally determined cycles in the range of mobility and communication networks.

Since July 2013, the project D4 of the Collaborative Research Centre 806 at the University of Cologne has dealt with the Mesolithic in western Germany. During the first phase of this research, the primary tasks were to establish a regional chronology for the Middle Stone Age on the one hand, and the mapping of all known sites in the Rhineland and Westphalia regarding the different Mesolithic phases on the other. Since July 2017, the project has focused on mobility, cultural exchange, and human-environment interactions during the Final Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic in Central Europe. Due to the poor conditions of preservation, numerous Palaeolithic and Mesolithic assemblages only contain lithic artefacts. Communication networks and mobility patterns of the hunter-gatherer groups can be deduced from the raw material of these finds for a considerable number of sites. Apart from pottery, lithic artefacts and their resources also illustrate the social and economic networks during the Neolithic. The raw material of knapped artefacts and their potential geological sources offer important infor-mation relating to the project's goals.
A map of the potential raw material sources for knapped artefacts in comparison with the archaeological finds is the basis for any suggestion about mobility patterns and communication networks. In general, information on geological lithic sources and the archaeological inventories in western Central Europe is far more detailed than for other regions. These data and all the information gathered on lithic raw material sources for western Ger-many and the Benelux countries allow us to provide a GIS-database using the software QGIS in the form of several maps and data tables with geological and archaeological information as weil as detailed descriptions and references.
One important result of this paper addresses the reconstrnction of lithic raw material catchment areas. Three examples from younger Mesolithic sites show that the more precise petrographic method for identifying lithic raw materials results in much !arger catchment areas than traditional macroscopic identification, leading to new considerations for estimating population densities during the later Middle Stone Age.

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, we strive to find routes of flint supply that may have been used systematically on the northern Alpine Foreland during the fourth millennium BCE, based on the origin of the siliceous raw materials; second, these routes will be interpreted as a part of cultural entanglements. Using the sedimentary microfacies method for sourcing the raw materials of artefacts recovered in prehistoric sites makes it possible to study the provenances of large series’ pieces in a non-destructive manner. Besides insights into the economy of flint raw material supply practices of single precisely-dated sites, this cross-regional comparison allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the economic relations and thus the mobility pattern of the respective settlement communities in different time periods. The method used for raw material sourcing is described in Affolter et al., 2021 (this issue) in detail. In this paper, we present as a first research step new raw material determinations from four Late Neolithic wetland sites on the northern Alpine Foreland that encompass several dendrochronologically-dated settlements: Twann Bahnhof (3838–3532 BCE) and Sutz-Lattrigen Hauptstation innen/Hafen (3827–3566 BCE) at Lake Biel and Hornstaad Hörnle IA (3919–3902 BCE) as well as Sipplingen Osthafen A and B (3919–3904 and 3857–3817 BCE) at Lake Constance. Thanks to the precise dating of the settlements and the finds deriving from the respective stratigraphic layers, not only regional differences but also transformations over time in raw material supplies can be approached with an extraordinarily high temporal resolution. Hence, this article demonstrates the interpretative potential of flint provenance determination to study the spatial mobility of prehistoric settlement communities. In addition to the presentation of previously unpublished materials, the aim here is to show an initial approach to the study of spatial mobility and entanglements using flint data, which is to be expanded in the future.

Zusammenfassung - Archäologische Forschungen sind im Allgäu seit den 1930er Jahren durchgeführt worden. Bisher fanden aber nur an drei Stellen fachliche Untersuchungen statt. Die Erstellung einer Chronologie beruht im Wesentlichen auf großräumigen typologischen Vergleichen, da nur wenige 14C-Datierungen vorliegen. Die genauere zeitliche Einordnung gelingt allerdings nur für Inventare mit typologisch ansprechbaren Mikrolithen in ausreichender Anzahl. Aussagen über Mobilität und Kommunikation werden durch Rohmaterialbestimmungen mithilfe der mikrofaziellen Analyse ermöglicht. Trotz geringer Datenbasis zeigt sich hier eine bemerkenswerte Variabilität im Laufe der Mittelsteinzeit, die auch in den angrenzenden Regionen der Schweiz und Südbayerns zu beobachten ist.

Abstract - Archaeological research has been carried out in the Allgäu since the 1930s. So far, however, archaeological investigations have only taken place at three sites. The compilation of a chronology is essentially based on largescale typological comparisons, as only a few 14C-dates are available. A more precise chronological classification, however, is only possible for inventories with a sufficient number of typologically determinable microliths. Statements about mobility and communication are made possible by raw material determinations with the help of
the microfacial analysis. Despite the small data base, a remarkable variability can be observed during the course of the Mesolithic period, also in the neighbouring regions of Switzerland and southern Bavaria.