Kolfschoten, Thijs van
Plaidter Hummerich: an early Weichselian Middle Palaeolithic site in the Central Rhineland Germany
Monographien des RGZM, Volume 45
The Plaidter Hummerich Middle Palaeolithic site was located on the summit of the eponymous East Eifel volcano, which today has been almost entirely quarried away. To the east lies the flat landscape of the Neuwied Basin and the Rhine Valley. Excavations from 1983-1986 of the stratified ice age deposits of the crater fill yielded approximately 3,000 individual finds of animal remains and 2,000 finds of lithic materials. The latter give an insight into the technological skills of Neanderthals, the rocks used indicate long-range mobility. The remains of predominantly large herbivores - wild cattle, horses, red deer – provide evidence for the abundant wildlife as an available food base.
