Hamburg culture

The Hamburg culture or Hamburgian (15,500-13,100 BP) is a Late Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer archaeological culture in northern Europe that existed during the final stages of the Last Glacial Period, beginning during the Bölling interstadial.^[1] It forms part of the broader Magdalenian group.^[2] Sites are found close to the ice caps of the time.^[3] They extend as far north as the Pomeranian ice margin.^[4]

The Hamburgian culture is known from sites across the North European plain, including Netherlands, the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark, Northern Germany and Poland.^[5] The culture reached as far northwest as Scotland, as evidenced by the stone tools found at the Howburn Farm site in South Lanarkshire, dating to 14,700 to 14,000 years ago.^[6] In 1994 remains were also reported from Skane in southern Sweden.^[7]

The peoples who produced the Hamburgian culture are generally interpreted as specialist hunters of reindeer, following their migrations across the northern European landscape.^[6]ix

The culture is characterized by shouldered points and zinken tools, which were used as chisels when working with antler. In later periods tanged Havelte-type points appear, sometimes described as most of all a northwestern phenomenon. Notwithstanding the spread over a large geographical area in which a homogeneous development is not to be expected, the definition of the Hamburgian as a technological complex of its own has not recently been questioned.^[3]

The distribution of the finds in the settlements show that the settlements were small and only inhabited by a small group of people. At a few settlements, archaeologists have discovered circles of stones, interpreted as weights for a teepee covering.^[8]