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The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe is associated with the regional disappearance of Neanderthals and the spread of Homo sapiens. Late Neanderthals persisted in western Europe several millennia after the occurrence of H.sapiensin eastern Europe1. Local hybridization between the two groups occurred2, but not on all occasions3. Archaeological evidence also indicates the presence of several technocomplexes during this transition, complicating our understanding and the association of behavioural adaptations with specific hominin groups4. One such technocomplex for which the makers are unknown is the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ), which has been described in northwestern and central Europe5–8. Here we present the morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains directly associated with an LRJ assemblage at the site Ilsenhöhle in Ranis (Germany). These human remains are among the earliest directly dated Upper Palaeolithic H.sapiensremains in Eurasia. We show that early H.sapiensassociated with the LRJ were present in central and northwestern Europe long before the extinction of late Neanderthals in southwestern Europe. Our results strengthen the notion of a patchwork of distinct human populations and technocomplexes present in Europe during this transitional period.

•A new Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at 14 ka is presented.•Two vegetation proxies (pollen assemblages and leaf waxes as well as quantitative climate reconstruction) are used to characterize the environment over the period of the LGM to Holocene.•Techno-typological characterization of the lithic assemblages is presented together with the sourcing of the entire obsidian assemblage by portable X-ray fluorescence, providing insights into the occupants’ exploited territories.•Our results suggest that the occupation hiatus during the LGM was a consequence of a decline in temperatures and the extended duration of the seasons conditioned the past hunter-gathers' occupation of the region.

Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Armenian Highlands and wider southern Caucasus region emphasises the significance of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 (c. 57–29 ka) as a crucial period for understanding hominin behaviours amidst environmental fluctuations. Ararat-1 cave, situated in the Ararat Depression, Republic of Armenia, presents potential for resolving emerging key debates regarding hominin land use adaptations during this interval, due to its well-preserved lithic artefacts and faunal assemblages. We present the first results of combined sedimentological, geochronological (luminescence and radiocarbon), archaeological and palaeoecological (macrofauna, microfauna and microcharcoal) study of the Ararat-1 sequence. We demonstrate sediment accumulation occurred between 52 and 35 ka and was caused by a combination of aeolian activity, cave rockfall and water action. Whilst the upper strata of the Ararat-1 sequence experienced post-depositional disturbance due to faunal and anthropogenic processes, the lower strata remain relatively undisturbed. We suggest that during a stable period within MIS 3, Ararat-1 was inhabited by Middle Palaeolithic hominins amidst a mosaic of semi-arid shrub, grassland, and temperate woodland ecosystems. These hominins utilised local and distant toolstone raw materials, indicating their ability to adapt to diverse ecological and elevation gradients. Through comparison of Ararat-1 with other sequences in the region, we highlight the spatial variability of MIS 3 environments and its on hominin land use adaptations. This demonstrates the importance of the Armenian Highlands for understanding regional MP settlement dynamics during a critical period of hominin dispersals and evolution.

Finding clusters in high dimensional data is a challenging research problem. Subspace clustering algorithms aim to find clusters in all possible subspaces of the dataset, where a subspace is a subset of dimensions of the data. But the exponential increase in the number of subspaces with the dimensionality of data renders most of the algorithms inefficient as well as ineffective. Moreover, these algorithms have ingrained data dependency in the clustering process, which means that parallelization becomes difficult and inefficient. SUBSCALE is a recent subspace clustering algorithm which is scalable with the dimensions and contains independent processing steps which can be exploited through parallelism. In this paper, we aim to leverage the computational power of widely available multi-core processors to improve the runtime performance of the SUBSCALE algorithm. The experimental evaluation shows linear speedup. Moreover, we develop an approach using graphics processing units (GPUs) for fine-grained data parallelism to accelerate the computation further. First tests of the GPU implementation show very promising results.

The Lower Middle Terrace (LMT) in the Lower Rhine area is part of a complex system of fluvial terrace-staircas- es within the Rhine area and yields an important archive for periods of fluvial aggradation driven by climate and tectonics. The so far existing chronostratigraphy of the Lower Middle Terrace is mainly based on geomorphological aspects, petrogra- phy and age estimates of cover sediments. Hence, there is a need to establish a more reliable chronological framework for the aggradation period of the fluvial sand and gravel related to the LMT itself. Here, we present first luminescence dating results from the LMT site at Brühl, southern Lower Rhine Embayment. Due to the saturation of the quartz OSL signal, luminescence measurements concentrated on the pIRIR290dating approach. The determined feldspar-pIRIR290luminescence ages highlight that the LMT at Brühl seems to be correlated with the penultimate (Saalian) glaciation. The deposits yield ages ranging from 140 ± 9 to 147 ± 11 ka and illustrate increased flu- vial activity during the penultimate glacial maximum (MIS 6). These first luminescence age estimates should motivate to further systematically study the chronological framework of the LMT also at additional sites of the Rhine system to unravel the aggradation history of the river Rhine in more detail.

In this study quartz OSL dating was applied to coastal dunes sediments in Picardy, Northern France. The OSL age estimates are compared to already available radiocarbon ages and deliver important new chronological data especially for those sediment units lacking14C datable horizons. OSL dating provides consistent ages with the14C dating already obtained on interstratified organic horizons. Periods of landscape instability and sand movement triggered by increased storminess could be verified with the new chronological data. The Holocene record of sand drift in the Dover Strait demonstrates that major periods of Northern Hemisphere cooling, especially from the Roman time, were stormy and responsible for three main episodes of sand movement and dune building along the coast. Transverse or parabolic dunes were mostly built during winter cold and dry gales within a period of centennial cyclonic rainy storms in association with a significant sediment-supply by the rivers. During the Little Ice Age, dry and cold, mostly winter storms caused sediment starvation at the coast due to sand exportation both to the inland and to the offshore. A major difference is evidenced between Picardy, exposed to the Westerlies, and the north-facing Tardinghen: here a nearly complete remolding of the dunes took place during the coldest part of the Little Ice Age.

Climatic signals are considered as well preserved in loess records. To assess their significance in a local and global context a reliable numerical chronology is needed. Luminescence dating provides an established dating method on natural mineral grains of quartz and feldspar by measuring the last time of the daylight exposure. For the field trip of the 37th meeting of the German working group on geomorphology to the Saxony-Anhalt loess belt, the upper part of the Quaternary profile Zeuchfeld has been reinvestigated. The profile is well known for its sandur (Zeuchfeld Sandur) situated at the base of the profile, assumed to be of Late Saalian age (MIS 6). Here, OSL quartz age estimates for the overlying loess deposits from the last glacial-interglacial cycle are reported. Furthermore, the underlying sandur has been sampled for conventional SAR dating on quartz and IR-RF dating on potassium rich feldspar. The OSL age estimates have been determined for three commonly used quartz grain size fractions (coarse, middle and fine grain). The results suggest at least two phases of loess deposition and preservation around 70 ka and 30 ka to 22 ka confirmed by previous assumptions based on field work and recent pedo- and lithostratigraphic correlation. In contrast, the quartz SAR and the IR-RF measurements from the underlying sandur yield a substantially older (pre-Saalian) age. The reasons for the assumed age overestimation and the details of the luminescence dating results are presented and discussed.

In Zauschwitz (Western Saxonian loess area, Central Germany), a ca. 7 m thick loess-palaeosol sequence underlain by fluvial gravels and sands was investigated in order to study regional palaeoenvironmental changes during the late Weichselian Pleniglacial. The lithostratigraphic classification of the loess-palaeosol sequence was combined with polymineral fine grain luminescence dating using the pIRIR290 approach, and correlated with similar loess-palaeosol-sequences from Central Saxony. Doing so, we obtained information about a climatic shift from more humid to more arid conditions during the late Pleniglacial, due to changes in the landscape dynamics of the study area: At ca. 30 ka, braided river flood-plain accumulation of the nearby Weisse Elster river was followed by a phase of decreased fluvial activity, allowing initial loess deposition on top of the fluvial sands and gravels. This period was characterized by cold but still quite humid conditions, as indicated by reworked loess and the occurrence of several tundra gley soils. Subsequently, a cold and more arid period of dust accumulation followed after ca. 22 ka. Intensive anthropogenic activity almost totally redeposited the Holocene black soil, demonstrating the attractiveness of the fertile loess area for early human settlement.

Luminescence dating was applied to Last Glacial and Early Holocene fluvial deposits derived from the Lower Rhine. The aim was to obtain a robust chronology for the sections (open pits) under study in order to contribute to a better understanding of past fluvial dynamics of the River Rhine. Furthermore, different luminescence dating methods (quartz OSL, feldspar IRSL and pIRIR as well as pIR-YOSL) were compared and tested by applying them to sands sampled at Rheinberg and Monheim-Hitdorf where independent age control is provided by intercalated pumice originating from the eruption of the Laacher See Volcano, about 12 900 a ago. The obtained quartz ages are in agreement with the age of the marker tephra. Also the feldspar luminescence age estimates agree with the quartz OSL ages. For the Rheinberg and Monheim-Hitdorf sections the obtained ages now yield a very precise chronology. Based on this chronology a very rapid fluvial aggradation could be demonstrated for the sediment succession at the Monheim-Hitdorf site occurring during Younger Dryas. At Rheinberg it was shown that the Laacher See pumice was reworked for long time as the luminescence ages point to a Boreal period of aggradation (~4 ka after the eruption of the volcano). For the older Lower Terrace sites (Aloysiushof/ Dormagen, Niederkassel, Libur) the ages now yield a reliable chronological framework for the fluvial aggradation helping to better understand the timing of changes in fluvial dynamics.

Thema dieses interdisziplinären Forschungsprogramms ist die Analyse und Optimierung des computerbasierten Wissensaustauschs in Lern- und Arbeitskontexten. Kommunikationswerkzeuge für derartige Situationen müssen auf bestimmte Herausforderungen eingehen, die sich aus der Kommunikation in Gruppen, auf Distanz und mit dem Ziel des Wissenserwerbs ergeben. Beispielhaft werden zwei Informatikprojekte vorgestellt, die das computerunterstützte kollaborative Lernen (CSCL) durch die Implementation von annotationsbasierten Lerndiskursen und CSCL-Skripten fördern.

Vorlesungsaufzeichnungen als Lerninhalte bieten relativ eingeschränkte Möglichkeiten für kooperatives Lernen. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt das Konzept der skriptgesteuerten verankerten Diskussion, um netzbasierte Gruppendiskussion auf der Basis von eLectures zu unterstützen. Bei diesem Ansatz werden die Diskussionsbeiträge räumlich und zeitlich an den für den Beitrag relevanten Teilen von eLectures verankert, so dass für jeden Beitrag der inhaltliche Kontext ersichtlich ist. Zudem unterstützen Beitragstypisierung und Prompts eine strukturierte Diskussion gemäß einem vorgegebenen Kooperationsskript.