Verräterische Fußspuren | Archäologie-Spezial (2)

·29 min·2 clips

Archaeologist Jim Leary discovered a 4,500-year-old roundhouse in England with a central fireplace and scattered pottery cups, suggesting a Neolithic party.

The episode begins by challenging static perceptions of the Stone Age, asking if listeners imagine dancing and celebration. Host Iska Schregelmann introduces an archaeology special focused on traces of ancestors. Archaeologist Jim Leary from the University of York describes excavating a 4,500-year-old roundhouse in Marden, southern England, with a central fireplace and scattered pottery cups, suggesting a Neolithic feast. He visualizes people laughing, dancing, and drinking beer, feeling the site is like a frozen snapshot. Leary reflects on how archaeology often misses such lively moments and aims to convey a more vivid picture of the past. He notes that archaeologists view the past through modern eyes, using it to understand themselves. The episode shifts to researcher Jérémy Duvaux from the University of Tübingen, who specializes in prehistoric footprints. He explains that fossil footprints are rare, requiring specific preservation conditions like muddy ground quickly covered by sediment. In 2022, at La Rache on Morocco's Atlantic coast, 85 Homo sapiens footprints were found, dating back 90,000 years—the oldest in North Africa. Duvaux describes analyzing foot shape and length to estimate age, height, and behavior, revealing a group of two children, a teenager, and two adults walking at 4-6 km/h toward the sea, likely for food. He discusses thermoluminescence dating to determine the footprints' age. The episode contrasts this with the 3.6-million-year-old footprints in Laetoli, Tanzania, evidence of upright walking in Australopithecus. Duvaux notes that footprint studies often involve guesswork, with researchers debating interpretations, such as whether children at a Neanderthal site in Normandy were playing or making tools. Jim Leary returns, discussing his 2023 book 'Fussspuren' and his focus on movement. He critiques outdated archaeological terms like 'optimal foraging strategy,' arguing movement is shaped by emotions, not just economics. He describes Mesolithic footprints in Goldcliff, Wales, where a four-year-old's footprints dance around an older child's, then stop where the older child's feet press deeper, suggesting a carrying moment. Leary emphasizes that such traces reveal everyday life, unlike monumental sites. He reinterprets Neolithic stone circles as part of pilgrimage routes along rivers, where people traveled by canoe, leaving objects from their homelands. The episode concludes that archaeology can enrich lives by showing familiar human experiences across millennia.

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