Artifact life histories and paleoeconomy during the Aurignacian at Vogelherd Cave
Schürch B, Conard N (2025)
Publication Type: Conference contribution, Abstract of a poster
Publication year: 2025
Conference Proceedings Title: Converging Horizons: Cultural and Environmental Interactrions in the Prehisotry of the European Far West
Event location: Faro
Abstract
Understanding tool use and differentiating tools from cores is essential for our interpretations of lithic
assemblages, human activities and technological organization of sites. In the Aurignacian this
differentiation of tools and cores is especially important with carinated cores and end-scrapers as common
artifacts in these assemblages. The same applies to narrow-sided cores and burins. Use-wear studies can
help us to reconstruct the function of tools. Refits can further increase our understanding of resharpening
as well as recycling processes. At Vogelherd, these refits are often further contextualized by the sorting of
minimal raw material units.
The current analysis of the lithic assemblages from Vogelherd illuminates what Joachim Hahn in 1988
described as opportunistic (Hahn, 1988) behaviour during the Early Upper Paleolithic of the Swabian Jura.
Gustav Riek completely excavated Vogelherd Cave in the summer of 1931 (Riek, 1934). Between 2005
and 2023, Conard led ten seasons of systematic excavation of the entire backdirt from Riek’s dig (Conard
et al., 2023).
This paper reports on the raw material sorting and refitting analysis of 5,710 artifacts from Archaeological
Horizons IV and V from Riek’s dig and roughly 56,000 artifacts from the recent excavation of the backdirt
at Vogelherd. End-scrapers, truncated pieces, pointed blades, splintered pieces, burins, combination tools
with two modified ends, retouched blades and bladelets are the most abundant Aurignacian tool types from
the site. Including all layers at Vogelherd, we documented 146 refitting complexes. These include carinated
pieces refitted with bladelets, end-scrapers and resharpening flakes, burins and burin spalls, and a variety
of broken tools. The refits often connected artifacts from the 1931 dig and the new phase of excavation.
Many of these refits can be contextualized within minimal raw material units representing individual
cobbles or Werkstücke.
This work allows for a detailed reconstruction of the specific reduction sequences and the life histories of
dozens of tools. Our results document how tool recycling played an important role in the Aurignacian lithic
economy at Vogelherd. We were also able to document the secondary use of tools for splintered pieces.
Multiple refitting clusters document the modification of artifacts into a different tool type following their
initial use.
The paper summarizes a range of specific technological choices made by stone knappers at Vogelherd, and
uses refitting studies to gain insights into the technological behaviors of the Aurignacian inhabitants of the
site.
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Involved external institutions
Germany (DE)How to cite
APA:
Schürch, B., & Conard, N. (2025). Artifact life histories and paleoeconomy during the Aurignacian at Vogelherd Cave. Poster presentation at Tagung der Hugo Obermaier-Gesellschaft, 66th Annual Meeting, Faro, PT.
MLA:
Schürch, Benjamin, and Nicholas Conard. "Artifact life histories and paleoeconomy during the Aurignacian at Vogelherd Cave." Presented at Tagung der Hugo Obermaier-Gesellschaft, 66th Annual Meeting, Faro Ed. Harald Floss, Yvonne Tafelmaier, Amira Adaileh, Florent Rivals, Mara Weber & Marcel Weiß (Vorstand der HOG), 2025.
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