Site of the Schöningen Spears – Humans and hunting 300,000 years ago

Description

The site of Schöningen is located near the town of Schöningen, district of Helmstedt, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The site was discovered in 1992 during rescue excavations caused by lignite open cast mining. Systematic excavations have been led by the Lower Saxony State Office of Cultural Heritage (NLD) and since 2008, these are carried out in collaboration with the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP). Mining activities ended in 2016.

The site has been dated by various methods to ca. 300,000 years before present and was occupied by Pleistocene hunter-gatherers (Homo heidelbergensis or Homo neanderthalensis). During the Pleistocene, the site was located at a lakeside when rapid sedimentation assured the exceptional preservation of organic materials including wooden artefacts, bones, insect remains, and pollen among others. The site of Schöningen has produced the best preserved and oldest hunting weapons in the world as well as an outstanding palaeoenvironmental record, both of which have been the subject of interdisciplinary research for about 30 years. Together with animal bones that are connected to hunting activities, the exceptionally well-preserved hunting weapons offer unique insights into past human hunting behaviour, human cognition, social behaviour and the lifeways of Pleistocene hunter-gatherer societies. The site of Schöningen has fundamentally changed our perception of Pleistocene human species in regards to socio-cultural abilities, human cognition, and technological expertise.

The exceptional finds from Schöningen and their context are presented in the immediate vicinity of the excavation and the pristine areas of the site in the Research Museum Schöningen (Forschungsmuseum Schöningen; FoMS) that opened in 2013 and annually attracts between 20,000 and 50,000 visitors, especially school groups. The FoMS, which already serves as the information center of the UNESCO Global Geopark Harz - Braunschweiger Land - Ostfalen, the largest geopark in Germany, can immediately take on the role of a World Heritage Center. The finds are the property of the State of Lower Saxony, as is the approximately 650 x 350 m large property on the edge of the opencast mine, in whose deep subsoil the undamaged area of the site is located.

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

The site of Schöningen represents an outstanding testimony of past human culture and creativity 300,000 years before present. Schöningen is the best preserved site of early human history and has produced the oldest, completely preserved hunting weapons known to humankind. The hunting weapons consist of nine spears, two throwing sticks and a lance. They are outstanding testimonies of the early human ability to actively hunt, including their coordinated social interaction and associated planning skills, capacities that previous to Schöningen were only attributed to modern humans. Schöningen thus has made a decisive contribution to a completely new understanding of the technological, cognitive and social abilities of early human species, which has made them more similar to us. Our modern perception of early humans changed fundamentally as a result of the research on the Schöningen hunting weapons. This is known as the Schöningen effect. In addition, the site provides exceptionally preserved evidence of past environments, e.g. in the form of animal bones, pollen, diatoms, eggshells, and insects, as well as, of early human resource exploitation and traditional hunter-gatherer lifeways.

Criterion (ii): The lakeside sediments of Schöningen have produced the oldest and best-preserved evidence of human hunting technologies. These technological achievements were crucial for early humans in order to establish themselves at the top of the food chain making the Schöningen spears as significant for human development as e.g. the invention of the wheel or of fire. Schöningen uniquely allows us to draw conclusions on the cognitive, social and economic abilities that enabled early humans to effectively adapt to challenging environmental conditions such as the northern European lowlands. Only hunting weapons made it possible for early humans to assert themselves in a world in which many animals were physically superior to them, not only including large carnivores such as lions, bears and sabre-toothed cats, but also large herbivores with their dangerous horns, antlers, or hooves.

The technological ensemble of the hunting weapons from Schöningen was created at a time when Homo heidelbergensis was already established in Europe while Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens) commenced to develop anatomically around the same time. Neanderthals thrived during several glacials and interglacials in Eurasia, while Homo sapiens dispersed from Africa across Eurasia adapting to a broad range of environments. The spread of effective hunting technologies across human species and population boundaries was key to the successful expansion of different human species during the Pleistocene, which would not have been possible without an exchange of ideas between different groups of people - Schöningen is an outstanding example of this.

The accelerated brain growth, which can be demonstrated in human evolution since about 2.5 million years ago, increased significantly with Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens and is due to food diversification and, in particular, reliable access to animal food resources. Schöningen's hunting weapons are representative of this important milestone in human history reflecting the result of a sustainable transfer of technological knowledge and socially organised hunting behaviour across population boundaries.

The discovery of the Schöninger spears ended a long-standing research debate that had denied Neanderthals and all other human species before Homo sapiens the ability to actively hunt large game,  regarding these human species as pure scavengers. The end of the hunting vs. scavenging debate was a paradigm shift and paved the way for a reinterpretation of the socio-cognitive, linguistic and technological abilities of Pleistocene humans, which could now be seen as more similar to modern humans - the Schöningen effect. Our perception of early humans changed fundamentally as a result of the research on the Schöningen hunting weapons.

Criterion (iii): Schöningen has produced the oldest evidence of complex hunting technologies and hunting behaviour in Pleistocene hunter-gatherer societies. The archaeological evidence shows that Homo heidelbergensis was an effective hunter of the North Eurasian Plain. The technological expertise of crafting efficient hunting weapons and the expertise of socially organised hunting behaviour were sustainably passed on from one generation to the next in the form of knowledge transfer by demonstration, imitation, participation and verbal instruction. This knowledge transfer may have even occurred between human species, from which Homo neanderthalensis and also our species, Homo sapiens, benefitted. Transmission of this traditional knowledge was essential for the survival of early humans during the Ice Age in Eurasia and is comprehensible even today. Furthermore, the purposeful selection of dense, hard conifer tree trunks in order to craft the hunting weapons and the precise craftsmanship are evidence of a long tradition of early woodworking technology. Schöningen can thus be regarded as a unique example of early woodworking traditions.

Schöningen is the best preserved Pleistocene site in the world. While evanescent traces of prehistoric human life have been swept away by glaciers elsewhere, in Schöningen such traces have been protected by up to 15 m thick sediment layers granting exceptional preservation conditions. Humankind lived in mobile hunter-gatherer communities during more than 95% of its history before eventually becoming sedentary through the cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals. The rich botanic and faunal evidence together with the stone, bone and wood artefacts at Schöningen document repetitive patterns of subsistence and socio-economic behaviour some 300,000 years ago in an outstanding manner and in high resolution. This traditional use of natural resources among past hunter-gather societies are highlighted in the large number of studies on animals and plants used in Schöningen, which include not only large mammals, but also botanical evidence. Schöningen also preserves the range of plant resources available to the hominins that could have been exploited for food and medicinal purposes. Schöningen thus offers exceptional evidence of traditional land use by a past human society and has an outstanding value for landscape archaeology. Schöningen represents an extraordinary example of this traditional hunter-gatherer way of life.

Statements of authenticity and/or integrity

The site was discovered in 1992 during rescue excavations. Systematic excavations have been led by the Lower Saxony State Office of Cultural Heritage (NLD) and since 2008, are carried out collaboratively with the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP). Before its discovery, the Pleistocene site had been covered by 10-15 m thick sediment layers that gave rise to an exceptional preservation of organic material. Of the original site, 12 hectares are preserved. The preserved part of the site, which has been excavated by the open-cast lignite mine and has been archaeologically investigated, is located under the open area of the museum that adjoins the open-cast mine - covered and protected by many meters of glacial layers. The authenticity of the site, its context and finds have been confirmed by consensus of the scientific community. Currently, some 80 researchers from 30 institutions are actively involved in ongoing research at Schöningen. The exceptional finds and their context are presented in the nearby Research Museum Schöningen (FoMS). The site and its content are protected under Lower Saxony’s cultural heritage act (Niedersächsisches Denkmalschutzgesetz) from the May 30^th 1978 (Nds. GVBl. S. 517), amended in 2011 (Nds. GVBl. S. 135). The site and all finds are the property of the State of Lower Saxony. The Schöningen spears are entered in the register of the nationally valuable cultural property of the federal states according to the national Cultural Property Protection Act.

Comparison with other similar properties

Since 1979 few Pleistocene sites have been enlisted in the World Heritage List. Like Schöningen, they represent significant milestones in human history during the time of the hunter-gatherer societies.

The almost four million year old Olduvai Gorge as part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania has produced some of the earliest traces of humankind, in the form of human fossils of various species, footprints (Laetoli), and stone artefacts (criteria iv, vii-ix). In addition to anthropological features, the genus Homo is primarily characterized by the manufacture and use of tools setting it apart from the animal kingdom. Some of the oldest stone artefacts come from the Olduvai Gorge.The Lower Valley of the Awash World Heritage Site in Ethiopia also represents a number of significant milestones in human history, which can be traced back here to around four million years before present. Similar to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, these are documented in the form of human fossils (e.g. Lucy) and stone artefacts (criterion ii-iv). The history of human evolution and of technological skills among early humans have been reinterpreted with the evidence from the Lower Awash Valley. Atapuerca in Spain includes several caves that have provided one of the oldest records of human species in Europe and also include several rock carvings made by hunter-gatherer cultures (criteria iii and v).Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar documents the cultural tradition of our closest relative, Homo neanderthalensis, between 120,000 and 35,000 years ago. It has provided evidence of symbolic behaviour in the form of a rock engraving and shows that Neanderthals already hunted birds and preyed upon marine animals. All three aspects represent rarely documented facets of modern human behaviour and creativity in Neanderthals (criterion iii).  

The protected site The Emergence of Modern Humans: The Pleistocene occupation sites of South Africa is currently enlisted in the UNESCO tentative list. South Africa's rich cave stratigraphies have contributed to a better understanding of early technologies and ways of life of our species, Homo sapiens, between 200,000 and 20,000 years ago. The development of stone processing technologies and very early evidence of symbolic representations stand for the long-standing exchange of human values ​​(criteria ii-v).  

Early human woodworking may have a long chronology as suggested by phytolith studies on c. 1.5 million year old hand axes from Peninj in Tanzania, or by the fragment of a possible wooden spear tip from the c. 400,000 year old site Clacton-on-Sea in Great Britain. Yet only Schöningen has provided the oldest, undisputed material culture of an established wood technology in such outstanding preservation and on such a large scale. Wooden digging sticks from the 300,000 year old Gantangqing site in China and the 120,000 year old site of Pogetti Vecchi in Italy and of Aranbaltza III in Spain confirm the importance of wood artefacts in Pleistocene humans. In contrast, Schöningen produced a range of hunting weapons that imply e.g. complex social interaction in regards to organised hunting parties. Younger evidence of wood working and active hunting comes from the c. 130,000 years old site of Lehringen in Lower Saxony, Germany where a single wooden lance was discovered in the rib case of a straight-tusked elephant. At other sites, such as the Lower Paleolithic sites of Bilzingsleben and Bad Cannstadt (both Germany), the Middle Paleolithic site of Abric Romani (Spain), or the Upper Paleolithic site of Krems-Hundssteig (Austria) calcified wood remains were documented, but their poor preservation makes it impossible to qualify them as worked objects. 

In conclusion, Schöningen is distinguished from the aforementioned sites by its exceptional preservation of a broad range of the oldest wooden hunting weapons in the world, which are connected to active hunting, advanced human cognition and social behaviour, as well as to elaborate technological skills in regards to wood working. Schöningen has made a decisive contribution to a completely new understanding of the technological, cognitive and social abilities of early human species, which ultimately has made them more similar to us.