The Federmesser Culture is the name of a late Paleolithic cultural group (circa 12,500-9000 BC), following the Hamburg and among the earliest cultures known to have been living in Scandinavia. The Federmesser is often associated with the Allerod, a brief warming period at the end of the last glacial maximum between 10,800 and 10,000 BC.
Federmesser means "pen-knife" in German, and the term refers to the distinctive pointy projectile points of the culture. These points are found across lowland northwestern Europe, from France to eastern German. The site of Rekem, an intensively occupied Federmesser site in Belgium, was recently investigated by Marc de Bie and Jean-Paul Caspar, and has been dated to 11,350 ± 150 BP.
Sources
Thanks to Ferdi Geerts for assistance with this entry.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
