Fundplatz Salzgitter-Lebenstedt

The Salzgitter-Lebenstedt site is a Middle Palaeolithic open-air camp north of Salzgitter-Lebenstedt in eastern Lower Saxony. It sits on the southern edge of the North European Plain at about 82 metres above sea level, where the Krähenriede stream meets the wide Fuhse valley. The valley once held a deep Urstromtal before the river cut down into its present course. Excavations revealed a seasonal camp used by Neanderthal hunters who followed reindeer herds into the lowland each autumn. The site is important because it shows how Neanderthals organised large-scale reindeer hunts around 58 000 to 54 000 years ago. Archaeologists found bones of at least 86 reindeer, mostly adults, alongside flint tools and rare bone points made from mammoth ribs and fibulae. The hunters chose animals aged eight to nine years, which made up a third of the kill, and broke open marrow-rich bones using a standardised technique. Pollen and plant remains prove they lived in an open tundra with dwarf birch, white dryas and willows. Visitors can see the finds in several museums. The Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum in Wolfenbüttel displays original excavation slices and the Neanderthal skull fragments known as Lebenstedt 1. The Naturhistorisches Museum Braunschweig shows the animal bones, while the Schloss Salder museum in Salzgitter recreates the Ice Age landscape in an outdoor ‘Ice Age garden’.