The Dynamics of Small Postglacial Lake Basins and the Nature of Their Archaeological Record: A Case Study of the Middle Palaeolithic Site Neumark-Nord 2, Germany

Due to favorable conditions of preservation, sedimentary basins provide rich records of human behavior and its environmental context. The conditions for the preservation of archaeological material however vary between basin types (large, river-fed or small, closed basins), while conditions also differ within a particular basin environment. The goal of this paper is to understand how the dynamics of a small postglacial basin such as Neumark-Nord 2, a context that dominates the Eemian archaeological record, affected the archaeology situated at its basin margin. The approach used here is to correlate the archaeological record with reconstructions of patterns of deposition and the water conditions within the basin, using lithology, micromorphology, pollen, and macroremains from a transect running from the basin center to the margin. The results show that (1) find levels were exposed to overland flow-induced winnowing, which vertically concentrated finds but did not cause significant transport, (2) find levels correspond to phases of increased water presence in the basin, and (3) lateral shifts in hominin activity areas may reflect adjustments in the water level. The research shows the importance of large-scale archaeological excavations and a multidisciplinary sampling strategy that covers both the basin center and the margins, when studying postglacial basin localities like Neumark-Nord 2.