Project Details
Projekt
Archaeology: When did humans conquer high mountains? The making of a tropical alpine human environment
Applicant
Dr. Ralf Vogelsang
Subject Area
Prehistory and World Archaeology
Physical Geography
Physical Geography
Term
from 2016 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270995238
During Phase 1 of RU 2358, the archeological project P1 could verify a Late Pleistocene settlement in the Bale Mountains which represents the worldwide earliest evidence of regular high altitude occupations by humans. These Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers developed unique behavioral and cultural adaptations to the afro-alpine environments, clearly to be distinguished from those of their Later Stone Age successors settling the area since the terminal Pleistocene and throughout much of the Holocene. In contrast, the Bale Mountains experienced a late introduction of herding societies and domestic livestock.While the reconstruction of the settlement history and the diachronic investigation of the human-environment interaction remain overarching goals, in Phase 2 more emphasis will be placed on the examination of the character of these different occupation events. This also includes carving out in more detail the pull-factors that attracted people to this high-altitude region, acquiring higher chronological as well as spatial resolution of the settlements and creating sound data sets within the Phase 2. Our own spectrum of geo-archeological methods geared towards an understanding of the formation processes at the investigated archeological rock shelter sites will be complemented by P2 with comparative data and insights into the intensity and chronology of former settlement events at these sites. To contextualize the spatial and temporal prehistoric settlement patterns and its cultural manifestations, joint explanatory models will consider former climate (results of P5, P7) and glacial (P6, P7) as well as ecological (P3, P4, C2) conditions. Also with C2/P4, aDNA analyses of Late Pleistocene archeological material (sediments, Giant Molerat faunal remains) are planned.
DFG Programme
Research Units
