Middle Paleolithic land use, spatial organization and settlement intensity in the Swabian Jura, southwestern Germany

The vast majority of information about the Middle Paleolithic of the Swabian Jura in southwestern Germany comes from the well-known cave sites of the Ach and Lone Valleys. The Neanderthal occupations of Swabia show a wide range of assemblage types. Lithic technologies varied over time and space and include assemblages defined as belonging to the Swabian Mousterian, the Keilmessergruppe and the Blattspitzengruppe. Organic artifacts include bone retouchers and a small number of bone points. Human bones are rare, and there is no indication that the sites were used as cemeteries. Anthropogenic features in the form of combustion features with numerous fragments of burnt bone are documented at several of the sites. Game species vary from site to site, but in general horses and reindeer are the most common hunted game. Seasonality data usually point to the use of the caves in the colder times of the year. Spatial analyses are hampered by the small size and the small number of the excavations conducted with modern techniques. The overall archaeological pattern suggests a settlement system with relatively few people living in the landscape and using a “low impact” subsistence pattern that allowed Neanderthals to coexist with cave bears without driving their populations to extinction. Mobility was high and social units were generally small and presumably contained small groups of kin. The low density of finds at most Swabian sites points to their sporadic but repeated use by Neanderthals and an average occupation intensity and population density an order of magnitude lower than that of the subsequent Aurignacian period.