The Azilian or Federmesser period in Europe is of great interest today, because it exemplifies the struggles that humans have experienced under great climate change.
Side view of the re-assembled elk cow figurine from Weitsche, Germany. The forelegs haven't been found yet (photograph: U. Bohnhorst, © Stephan Veil, Landesmuseum, Hannover)
Note:The Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover sent me this higher resolution picture today (9/17)
At the end of the last Ice Age, the world began its long slow recovery from being under ice. The period known as the Alleröd brought the first warming trend to the European continent, changing the climate from steppe tundra to temperate pine and birch forest. The material culture of the people who survived this change is known as Azilian or Federmesser culture.
Such a climate change killed off a chunk of the population, as people had to learn a whole new way of living, and the effect of that is seen in the kinds of tools they made, the kinds of raw material they had access to, and even the kinds of symbolic art they produced. The art turned from naturalist styles seen in Upper Paleolithic cave paintings, and became more stylized, with more geometric techniques as seen in the following Mesolithic period.
This 9 centimeter (4 inch) long sculptured figurine of an elk from the Federmesser site of Weitsche, Germany is carved from amber, and it combines some of the realism of the Upper Paleolithic in its carving of the elk's dewlaps, and some of the geometrics of the Mesolithic, in the hash-mark representation of its mane. Further, it is a woodland creature, not that of the steppes, and it is likely (the tests are not as yet complete) of local Baltic amber. A perfect example of the transition exemplified by the Azilian.
Veil S, Breest K, Grootes P, Nadeau M-J, and Hüís M. 2012. A 14 000-year-old amber elk and the origins of northern European art. Antiquity 86(333):660-673.
- Read the Guide to the Azilian (includes more about the elk sculpture)
- Read about Baltic Amber
- Guide to the Upper Paleolithic
- Guide to the Mesolithic
Comments
If one closely inspects the Moose figurine one can see that the moose head in, reverse, is also the profile of a human face. There is also a faint eye looking to the left (east) near the bridge of the nose. If one replaces the leg on the right the overall shape would be that of a “U.” This is the gesture sign for, “turning.” The lines within the legs created the signs for, a “hidden-pathway.” The sign or shape within the “U” is a compound a the sign for a star and a rectangular place sign. The “star-place.” In gesture sign the left and right hands were equated to the east and west. Thus the meaning, “the Turning place of the star, its hidden pathways in the east and west.”
The cross hatching of the mane was the sign for a net or snare now called a “spirit-catcher.” The body of the female moose probacly represented the female-earth so that the snare was below the surface line of the mane. In otherwords the spirit of the deceased human was trapped within the body of the earth-female.
The holes in the moose head were possibly used to attach small feathers indicating, “flight.”
The age of the amber moose (ca 14,000 years ago) was about the time that the Native Americans were entering the Americas and bringing with them their knowledge of sign language that was used not only for communication between their various cultures but also to preserve a general cosmology related to the spirit after-life.
The above interpretation is only part of the available message But it would take to much space to document it here. For more information on sign language and how it was structured and applied please see:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/85335148/Native-American-Written-Sign-Language
Elk, of course equates in North America to the animal we know as moose. It’s true it is resident in woodlands, though what’s most important is an aquatic component as pond weed is an essential component to their diet, and so they are likely to be found in taiga/tundra transitional mosaic as long as there are ponds, so this can also be higher elevation lakes in accessible cirques, or oxbow lakes along meandering rivers throughout the north. Those holes at the point where the ears attach to the head make me wonder if they could have held some sort of attachment that would represent the moose’s most conspicuous feature; their large palmate antlers. Cheers.