Klimsch, Florian ; Heumüller, Marion ; Raemaekers, Daan C. M.; Peeters, Hans; Terberger, Thomas; Klimscha, Florian [Hrsg.]; Heumüller, Marion [Hrsg.]; Raemaekers, D. C. M. [Hrsg.]; Peeters, Hans [Hrsg.]; Terberger, Thomas [Hrsg.]: Materialhefte zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte Niedersachsens (Band 60): Stone Age borderland experience: Neolithic and Late Mesolithic parallel societies in the North European plain (Rahden/Westf.: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 2022)

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Foraging in a changing landscape - the late Mesolithic in the coastal area of Lower Saxony


Fig. 3 Mandibles from Spiekeroog and Baltrum (photo: I. Reese / Ostfriesische Landschaft)

Brindley 1/2 about 200 to 400 years later. In the later
case it would either give another example of early
farmers living on marine diet as already shown for
other parts of northern central Europe by Terberger
et al. (2018). Or this individuum belonged to the last
hunter-gatherers, who maintained the old way of life
in the salt marshes, which were not of interest for the
first farmers. Taking into account the environment
that can be reconstructed for that period of time in
the area of the recent Wadden Sea the later interpreta-
tion might be preferred: saltmarshes and tidal creeks
reaching deep into the country behind the present
day shoreline and a few areas where the bogs kept

growing close to the shore. There, farming might not
have been easy if possible at all.
One of the earliest finds that has for a long time
been attributed to the Mesolithic is an antler axe
found in 1980. It was collected from the surface c.
100 m east of the shoreline of the island of Juist. The
object was discovered on the western border of the
so-called Kalfamergat, a straight between the islands
of Juist and Norderney (Fig. 1,1). The approximatley
20 cm long axe was worked from an antler branch.
It is obviously not a T-shaped antler axe. The cutting
edge is damaged, and the butt is rounded, possibly
due to surface damage by reworking in the sea, so