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Although preservation of Paleolithic faunal assemblages from open-air settings is often poor, the Lower Paleolithic sites of Schöningen provide exceptionally well-preserved mammalian faunal material for investigating hominin/animal relationships. Pleistocene fossil assemblages, however, usually reflect a complex taphonomic history in which natural and anthropogenic processes are often superimposed. A number of examples of osseous finds that resemble tools were recently discovered in the MIS 9 deposits of Schöningen 12 II. Non-anthropogenic agents are known to produce surface modifications mimicking human artifacts and the identification of osseous remains used and/or deliberately modified by ancient hominins is often controversial in such old contexts. Multiple lines of evidence are thus useful for distinguishing between osseous artifacts and “eco-facts”. In this paper, the recognition of the use of bone for different technological purposes by late Middle Pleistocene hominins is addressed through a multi-proxy study combining geoarcheology, bone taphonomy, zooarcheology, and use-wear analysis. This allowed the identification of the processes and agents responsible for the formation and modification of the different bone assemblages of Schöningen 12 II. Our analysis points to different types of bones having been likely used as tools. These results expand the diversity of the organic technological repertoire of the Middle Pleistocene hominins, making Schöningen 12 II a remarkable new source of information on osseous technology long before the Upper Paleolithic, the period traditionally viewed as the start of the systematic use of bone tools. Together with other observations of bone tools documented during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic, the results from Schöningen show that archeologists may have underestimated the diversity and importance of osseous technology among archaic hominins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of papers related to art projects which use science and technology. They include "An Artifact for the Rhein-Main-Dounan Canal," by Francisco Infante, "Razor Fabric: The Concept of a Flexible Razor-Blade Sculpture," by Boris Stuchebjukov, and "The Temple of All Saints Project," by August Lanin.

The human skeletal remains from the Vogelherd cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany are at present seen as the best evidence that modern humans produced the artefacts of the early Aurignacian. Radiocarbon measurements from all the key fossils from Vogelherd show that these human remains actually date to the late Neolithic, between 3,900 and 5,000 radiocarbon years before present (bp). Although many questions remain unresolved, these results weaken the arguments for the Danube Corridor hypothesis-that there was an early migration of modern humans into the Upper Danube drainage-and strengthen the view that Neanderthals may have contributed significantly to the development of Upper Palaeolithic cultural traits independent of the arrival of modern humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information related to the Tan-Tan figurine, discovered during an archaeological survey by state archaeologist Lutz Fiedler in Germany. The Tan-Tan figurine consists of a moderately metamorphosed quartzite. The Tan-Tan quartzite figurine is seen as a naturally formed object that was collected as a manuport because of its most unusual form. The Tan-Tan figurine could occur naturally in an alluvial deposit containing many stone tools. The relatively broad and diffuse groove reveals no traces of impact and is regarded as a natural feature.