The Hamburgian culture is known from sites across theNorth European plain, including Netherlands, theJutland Peninsula of Denmark, Northern Germany and Poland.[4] The culture reached as far northwest as Scotland, as evidenced by the stone tools found at the Howburn Farm site inSouth Lanarkshire, dating to 14,700 to 14,000 years ago.[5] In 1994 remains were also reported fromSkane in southern Sweden.[6]
The peoples who produced the Hamburgian culture are generally interpreted as specialist hunters ofreindeer, following their migrations across the northern European landscape.[5]ix
The culture is characterized by shouldered points andzinken tools, which were used aschisels when working with antler. In later periods tanged Havelte-type points appear, sometimes described as most of all a northwestern phenomenon. Notwithstanding the spread over a large geographical area in which a homogeneous development is not to be expected, the definition of the Hamburgian as a technological complex of its own has not recently been questioned.[2]
A Hamburg culture shouldered point
The distribution of the finds in the settlements show that the settlements were small and only inhabited by a small group of people. At a few settlements, archaeologists have discovered circles of stones, interpreted as weights for ateepee covering.[7]
^It is obvious, for instance, that the Hamburgian culture cannot be related to a so-called 'Meiendorf interstadial' which was distinguished erroneously and which attributed too high an age to the culture. Burdukiewicz, Jan Michał (1986)The late Pleistocene shouldered point assemblages in western Europe (originally published in Polish in 1982) E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Nederlands,page 108,ISBN978-90-04-08100-0
^abFrom the First Humans to the Mesolithic Hunters in the Northern German Lowlands, Current Results and Trends - THOMAS TERBERGER. From: Across the western Baltic, edited by: Keld Møller Hansen & Kristoffer Buck Pedersen, 2006,ISBN87-983097-5-7, Sydsjællands Museums Publikationer Vol. 1"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2008-09-11. Retrieved2008-10-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
