Alfred Rust | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 4, 1900 Hamburg, German Empire |
| Died | August 14, 1983 (aged 83) Ahrensburg, West Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Known for | Work on the prehistory of Germany, the Levant and Near East |
| Awards | Albrecht-Penck-Medaille (1966) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Archaeology |
Alfred Rust (July 4, 1900 – August 14, 1983) was a German prehistoric archaeologist. Though self-taught, he became a pioneer in the study of the Hamburgian culture of the late Paleolithic, especially through his excavations in northern Germany.
B.E. Roveland, University of Massachusetts Amherst, commenting on self-taught archaeologists who played a major role from 1930 and onwards in archaeological discoveries in northern Germany, specifically cited Rust as "the most effective of these amateurs, whose work on the now classic sites of Meiendorf and Stellmoor launched the study of the Hamburgian period." [1]
Coming from a very modest family, raised by his single mother, Alfred Rust loved observing nature in the moors and marshes surrounding the city of Hamburg as a child. As a young man he trained as an electrical worker, but enrolled in night classes at the Institute of Archaeology of Hamburg (Volkshochschule zur Archäologie). He was hard working and passionate about prehistory, drawing the attention and kindness of his teachers.
To better understand the origin of Paleolithic stone tools in Central Europe, (and no doubt attracted by the discovery in 1928 by Dorothy Garrod of the Natufian culture in Wadi en-Natuf in the current West Bank) Rust began a bike trip to the Middle East in 1930 with a friend. Leaving from Hamburg on 1 September, they crossed the Balkans, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and finally succeeded at the cost many adventures and sufferings to Alexandria in Egypt. Exhausted and suffering from disease, Rust was hospitalized at the Danish hospital in Nebek, north of Damascus. During his convalescence, and for several months, he explored and excavated the caves carved into the cliffs of the wadi (valley) of Skifta, near the small town of Yabrud. He discovered, with the help of his friend and some local laborers, one of the most important Palaeolithic sites in the Middle East. The adventurous story of this discovery and the results of his excavations at Yabrud were published by Rust between the years 1931 and 1933 in Offa, the journal of Archaeology led by Gustav Schwantes (Rust's mentor) and Herbert Jankuhn.
After his return to Germany, Rust worked for an electricity company and pursued his vocation as an amateur archaeologist. He was encouraged by the pre-historian Gustav Schwantes, who was also self-taught in his youth. With hard work and the spirit of innovation, Rust used new methods (soil coring, excavation in floodplains with drainage by pumps) to examine the layers of peat around the areas left by the melting of the ice sheet which currently form the Meiendorfer Ahrensburg valley, near Hamburg (in the district of Stormarn, State of Schleswig-Holstein).
In the 1930s, Rust discovered the remains of Paleolithic settlements (tents, homes, carving reliefs etc. ...) in particular Meiendorf, the type site of the Hamburg culture.
Rust showed (which was denied at the time) that groups of hunter-gatherers frequented the tundra stretching to the foot of the huge glaciers that covered northern Europe during the Ice Age. He found numerous flint tools (awls, scrapers, chisels for working bone and antler, pairs of blades for mounting on a pair of scissors) and carved stone, wood or bone weapons (spears). He also discovered the bones of sacrificed animals, especially deer, found intact except for a large stone which was placed intentionally in the thorax of each animal. Among his other notable discoveries: an amber plate with a hole and engraved figures (horse, bird, fish), a finely carved and incised stick, and a baton decorated with a large pair of reindeer antlers.
Rust, through his discoveries in the field excavations at Meiendorf, showed that reindeer hunters belonging to the Hamburg culture in the late Paleolithic were hunting in this region about 15000 years ago. During a period of warmer climate, about 13400 years ago, hunters belonging to the Magdalenian culture also lived at the foot of glaciers until a new cold period, 12,700 years ago, after which appeared the reindeer hunting Ahrensburg culture.
In Stellmoor ("marshy place" in German), a site representative of the Ahrensburg culture, by studying the weapons and their traces on the bones of game (perforations of the scapula in particular) Rust brought to light that the weapons and mode of hunting had evolved from the spear with a large blade to the smaller arrows made of pine with sharp points. [2] Rust deduced that these different types of weapons matched a different hunting technique (as well as a social organization and lithic size): the spear was powerful but imprecise (used in killing large herds of reindeer driven by many beaters) and gave way to bow and arrows used in stalking, probably oriented thin by over-hunting and climate change.
Rust was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kiel on 1 June 1940. In the words of B.E. Roveland "Researchers [German archaeologists at sites in northern Germany] were followed with passion by a fascinated public, and in the socio-political and economic context of inter-war Germany, they caused a powerful movement of regional and national pride."
Rust had to yield to the entreaties of Wolfram Sievers (Director of the SS Ahnenerbe) and he joined the "Institute of ancestral heritage," which allowed him to escape conscription.
Rust was a member of the research department for prehistory (Landesamt für Vor-und Frühgeschichte) and worked on other tools of the Paleolithic. He also worked with the archaeologist Gustav Steffens in a series of excavations conducted on the "Stufe" (degree, escarpment) of Altona, near Wittenberg, [3] and made important work on othercultures ("dating the Clactonian by the typology of tools, and Treene through geological stratigraphy"). [4]
Many of Rust's scientific findings were opposed from the year 1950 [5] and scientific terminology that Rust had developed and he published in 1950 was abandoned in favor of the one established by a British archaeologist, Miss Dorothy Garrod.: ainsi la terminologie scientifique que Rust avait élaborée et qu'il publia en 1950. [6] She continued his prospecting in the Holy Land where she had individualized Natufian culture in 1928, had excavated a site (the Mugharet el Emireh) in Lower Galilée. [7] French archaeologists, F. Bordes and D. Sonneville-Bordes also searched the site at Yabrud in the years 1954–55.
However, in the 1990s, the originality of the work of Rust in Syria was recognized, especially his discovery of "previously unknown lithic industries, such as the Yabrudian and pre-Aurignacian. [8]
And in the same year 1990, an excavation mission from Columbia University also made excavations at the site of Yabrud and its conclusions did justice to the vision of Rust, especially in the individualization of 45 layers of different cultures that had occupied it. [9]
For its participation in the Ahnenerbe, Rust suffered criticism in his later years.
Rust was made honorary doctorate in 1940 from the University of Kiel. In 1965, the town of Ahrensburg was made an honorary citizen. The baton decorated with a reindeer antlers discovered by Rust appears in the arms of the city, under the representation of the castle.
The Alfred-Rust-Wanderweg ("Promenade Alfred Rust"), from the station to Ahrensburg and east leading to Gute Stellen, was inaugurated in 2005.
A conference room for shows and exhibition, located Wulfdorfer Weg 71, 22926 Ahrensburg, was named "Alfred Rust Saal."
In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are sometimes confused or used as synonyms. More often, they are distinct, referring to approximately the same period of time in different geographic areas. Epipaleolithic always includes this period in the Levant and, often, the rest of the Near East. It sometimes includes parts of Southeast Europe, where Mesolithic is much more commonly used. Mesolithic very rarely includes the Levant or the Near East; in Europe, Epipalaeolithic is used, though not very often, to refer to the early Mesolithic.
Ahrensburg is a town in the district of Stormarn, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is located northeast of Hamburg and is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Its population is around 31,000. Schloss Ahrensburg, the town's symbol, is a Renaissance castle dating from 1595.
The Creswellian is a British Upper Palaeolithic culture named after the type site of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire by Dorothy Garrod in 1926. It is also known as the British Late Magdalenian. According to Andreas Maier: "In current research, the Creswellian and Hamburgian are considered to be independent but closely related entities which are rooted in the Magdalenian." The Creswellian is dated between 13,000 and 11,800 BP and was followed by the most recent ice age, the Younger Dryas, when Britain was at times unoccupied by humans.
The Magdalenian cultures are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. It is named after the type site of La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley, commune of Tursac, in France's Dordogne department.
The Ahrensburg culture or Ahrensburgian was a late Upper Paleolithic nomadic hunter culture in north-central Europe during the Younger Dryas, the last spell of cold at the end of the Weichsel glaciation resulting in deforestation and the formation of a tundra with bushy arctic white birch and rowan. The most important prey was the wild reindeer. The earliest definite finds of arrow and bow date to this culture, though these weapons might have been invented earlier. The Ahrensburgian was preceded by the Hamburg and Federmesser cultures and superseded by the Maglemosian and Swiderian cultures. Ahrensburgian finds were made in southern and western Scandinavia, the North German plain and western Poland. The Ahrensburgian area also included vast stretches of land now at the bottom of the North and Baltic Sea, since during the Younger Dryas the coastline took a much more northern course than today.
The Hamburg culture or Hamburgian was a Late Upper Paleolithic culture of reindeer hunters in northwestern Europe during the last part of the Weichsel Glaciation beginning during the Bölling interstadial. Sites are found close to the ice caps of the time. They extend as far north as the Pomeranian ice margin.
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil, often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He is noted for his studies of cave art in the Somme and Dordogne valleys as well as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, China with Teilhard de Chardin, Ethiopia, British Somali Coast Protectorate, and especially Southern Africa.
Nazi archaeology was a field of pseudoarcheology led and encouraged by various Nazi leaders and Ahnenerbe figures, such as Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, which directed archaeologists and other scholars to search Germany's archeological past in order to find material evidence supporting an advanced, Aryan ancestry as alleged and espoused by the ultranationalist Nazi Party.
Yabroud or Yabrud is a city in Syria, located in the Rif Dimashq governorate about 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of the capital Damascus. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Yabroud had a population of 25,891 in the 2004 census.
The Jabroudian culture is a cultural phase of the Middle Paleolithic of the Levant. It broadly belongs to the Mousterian culture, and shows connections with the European facies La Quina.
Emiran culture was a culture that existed in the Levant between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic periods. It is the oldest known of the Upper Paleolithic cultures and remains an enigma as it transitionally has no clear African progenitor. This has led some scholars to conclude that the Emiran is autochthonous to the Levant. However, some argue that the Emiran reflects broader technological trends observed earlier in North Africa, at older sites like Taramsa 1 in Egypt, "which contains modern human remains dated to 75,000 years ago".
The Swiderian culture is an Upper Palaeolithic/Mesolithic cultural complex, centred on the area of modern Poland. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock near the Swider River, a tributary to the Vistula River, in Masovia. The Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers. Rimantienė (1996) considered the relationship between Swiderian and Solutrean "outstanding, though also indirect", in contrast with the Bromme-Ahrensburg complex, for which she introduced the term "Baltic Magdalenian" for generalizing all other North European Late Paleolithic culture groups that have a common origin in Aurignacian.
La Marche is a cave and archaeological site located in Lussac-les-Châteaux, a commune in the department of Vienne, western France. It is an archaeological site that has engendered much debate that has not been resolved to date. The carved etchings discovered there in 1937 show detailed depictions of humans and animals that may be 15,000 years old. The cave paintings at this site, however, are controversial and many doubt their authenticity.
Henry Bernard Alfred Testot-Ferry also known as Henry de Ferry was a French geologist, archeologist and paleontologist. He was discoverer of the prehistoric site at the Rock of Solutré.
The Vogelherd Cave is located in the eastern Swabian Jura, south-western Germany. This limestone karst cave came to scientific and public attention after the 1931 discovery of the Upper Palaeolithic Vogelherd figurines, attributed to paleo-humans of the Aurignacian culture. These miniature sculptures made of mammoth ivory rank among the oldest uncontested works of art of mankind. Because of the cultural importance of these sculptures and the cave's testimony to the development of Paleolithic art and culture, in 2017 the site became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site called Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura.
Obłazowa Cave is a cave situated in the nature reserve of Przełom Białki at Nowa Biała near Krempachy, Gmina Nowy Targ in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. The cave has a 9 m long chamber to which a short corridor leads. It is one of the most important Paleolithic sites in Poland.
Arago cave is a prehistoric site in the community of Tautavel, in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales. It is a large cavity overlooking a perennial stream called the Verdouble. Human remains attributed to the Tautavel Man and the lithic remnants of the Lower Paleolithic were discovered in the cave.
The Cave of Aurignac is an archaeological site in the commune of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. Sediment excavation and artefact documentation since 1860 confirm the idea of the arrival and permanent presence of European early modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic. The eponymous location represents the type site of the Aurignacian, the earliest known culture attributed to modern humans in western Eurasia. Assemblages of Aurignacian tool making tradition can be found in the cultural sediments of numerous sites from around 45,000 years BP to around 26,000 years BP. In recognition of its significance for various scientific fields and the 19th-century pioneering work of Édouard Lartet the Cave of Aurignac was officially declared a national Historic Monument of France by order of May 26, 1921.
Anna Belfer-Cohen is an Israeli archaeologist and paleoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Belfer-Cohen excavated and studied many important prehistoric sites in Israel including Hayonim and Kebara Caves and open-air sites such as Nahal Ein Gev I and Nahal Neqarot. She has also worked for many years in the Republic of Georgia, where she made important contributions to the study of the Paleolithic sequence of the Caucasus following her work at the cave sites of Dzoudzuana, Kotias and Satsrublia. She is a specialist in biological Anthropology, prehistoric art, lithic technology, the Upper Paleolithic and modern humans, the Natufian-Neolithic interface and the transition to village life.
Alexis Mallon (1875–1934), more commonly known as Père Mallon, was a French Jesuit priest and archaeologist. He founded the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem and made important early contributions to the study of the prehistory of the Levant with his excavations at Teleilat el Ghassul (1929–1934).
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