1989 - Ben Dupen, Ursel Benekendorff, James Harrod in Elst, Holland

Click image for closer photos and spectrum charts.

 

Judging from currently available geostratigraphic data and varying professional opinions, Mrs. Benekendorff's artifact material, retrieved from seven to eighteen meters (23'-60') down in a quarried gravel pit, is currently hypothesized to likely be from both Saalian and Elsterian glacial till along with some end-stage Weichselian solifluction soil in the upper stratum.  And all this overlies or has intruded into fossil-bearing Miocene micaceous clay, from about 11 million years ago.  Quite remarkably, the whole conglomeration has, over the millenia, been forced upward to a relatively accessible depth by the expansion of an underlying salt dome.  A more precise determination of the area's geostratigraphy (a bit of a mess) will require much further investigation and inquiry, depending on available time, resources, and interest.  Meanwhile there is the sketch below from fall 1983 of the quarry's east wall by Lewandowski for Dr. Hans-Jürgen Lierl (Univ. of Hamburg) apparently showing schematically, and not to scale, the stratigraphic components from Weichselian down to Miocene.  (Thanks to Dr. James Harrod for bringing this drawing to my attention.)

Doctorate-level Dutch flint experts, looking at some of my high-resolution photos of the finds, have identified the flint material of which the artifacts were manufactured as having originated in Denmark, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea area.

Conservatively assuming the most recent artifact material to have been transported by the Weichselian ice sheet and mixed with that from the Saalian, it seems reasonable to think, at least tentatively, that the artifacts' age overall may range from early Middle Palaeolithic to Upper Palaeolithic, or very roughly 300,000 to 25,000 years BP.  The morphology/typology of confirmed artifacts in the assemblage seems reasonably consistent with this.  If some of the artifacts have been transported by the Elsterian ice sheet, these could be Lower Palaeolithic, or as old as 500,000 years.

Altogether, this has interesting implications for the long-held assumption that early humans and/or their predecessors did not venture as far north as Scandinavia prior to the last ice age.

No claim is made that this was a formal controlled archaeological dig, being more of a salvage operation (and certainly a heroic one at that).  The evidence is simply presented for further consideration and investigation, which it clearly deserves but probably will not receive.  (Although generally more technically competent than their American counterparts, German archaeologists seem no less fearful of pursuing anything this controversial - especially so when the initial discovery was made by someone who is neither a professional archaeologist nor a man.)