The Neolithic Settlement Landscape of the Southeastern Swabian Alb

This paper presents goals, methods, and preliminary results of a collaborative project investigating Neolithic settlement and land use of the southeastern Swabian Alb limestone plateau region in southwestern Germany. The project combines systematic surveys of plowed fields and analysis of large private collections to investigate site distributions on the plateau, which is largely poor in surface water but a source of regionally important chert raw material. GIS based comparisons of site locations in terms of soil type and their agricultural potential, distance to water, and distance to chert sources show that numerous sites from the Bandkeramik to the younger Neolithic are associated with either chert sources or high-quality settlement locations. A number of extensive private collections provide a rich foundation to investigate functional and chronological differences among site locations. Preliminary results of lithics and ceramics analyses of nine sites indicate chronological variability as well as dissimilar characteristics in blade core technology and abundance and types of retouched tools between chert-extraction sites and settlements