Palaeolithic Europe： The Volcanic MEGA ERUPTION of 11,000 BC

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe now to get the latest ancient history news and independent research from around the world. Around 14,700 years ago, temperatures in the northern hemisphere spiked to their highest level in more than 10,000 years as Europe entered a warm and moist interstadial period. It is known as the Bolling Allerod and in Europe it led to significant changes to the environment. Dense tree-based vegetation began to spread and mammoths, rhinos and reindeer would progressively give way to aurochs, red deer, elk, roe deer and beavers. Bands of hunter-gatherers occupied the European continent, people that were making tools, weapons and jewellery. People that understood the natural world, were artistic and skilled and had developed various rites and rituals. At this time, Paleolithic people had to be adaptable, because during this warmer interstadial period, the climate was still far from stable and by 13,000 years ago the forests of Europe became sparse and the climate was now more like the cold and humid semi-boreal conditions we see in central Sweden. But whatever adaptations humans had to make for the climate, nothing could prepare them for what was to come. In western Germany, something was bubbling beneath the earth's crust, something big and something that would have impacted the lives of so many hunter-gatherer communities over a vast area of land from Britain to Italy and beyond. This was the Lascia Sea volcanic eruption of 13,077 years ago, recently redated, taking place 126 years earlier than previously thought. The volcano is located in Eifel, a low mountain range in western Germany and it goes down in history as one of central Europe's largest volcanic eruptions over the past 100,000 years. It took place between late spring and early summer and the eruption ejected around 20 cubic kilometers of tephra, with an eruption column reaching up to around 40 kilometers in height. The eruption was slightly larger than that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, and I'm sure that some of you can remember seeing pictures and videos of the devastation on the news. The initial blasts of the Lascia Sea eruption flattened trees in a 4 kilometer radius, and the eruption lasted several weeks. The volcanic crater collapsed more than 30 times, and these generated pyroclastic flows that covered valleys with sticky tephra up to 10 kilometers away. Close to the crater, tephra deposits are more than 50 meters thick, and 5 kilometers away, they are still around 10 meters thick. Yes, this was a huge eruption, and Europe hasn't seen anything like it since. For those interested in the geology, the German central Rhineland forms part of the West European Rift System, situated on a seismotectonic belt that runs from the North Sea through the Rhine Valley to the Alps. A mantle plume pushes up beneath Germany, in an area known geologically as the Rhenish Shield. For millions of years, this has been a volcanic hotspot, but during the Pleistocene, volcanism was limited to the Eiffel Uplands, with two very distinct volcanic fields. During the Pleistocene there were hundreds of eruption centers, but the Lascia Sea eruption of 13,000 years ago, was certainly the most violent eruption in the history of the East Eiffel Volcanic Field. Experts believe that all plants and animals for a distance of 60 kilometers to the northeast and 40 kilometers to the southeast could have been wiped out. In the Volcanic Explosivity Index that goes up to 8, this enormous eruption has been classified as a 6. Human populations that were caught in the vicinity of the volcano would have been wiped out, not just from the eruption, but also the devastating after effects. Scientists have discovered that tephra deposits actually dammed the Rhine River, creating a giant lake around 140 kilometers square. They also note that soon after the Rhine had been closed off, the dam broke its banks and an enormous flood swept downstream, extinguishing any life that was caught in its path. But as well as the eruption and the flood, we also have the fallout of ash, and this has been found to cover an enormous area, larger than 300,000 square kilometers, stretching from Britain and Doggerland to central France and Italy, and from southern Sweden to Poland. There is evidence it's even recorded in the Greenland Ice Core data, implying it was even more widespread than previously thought. The eruption led to several years of cold summers in the region, and up to two decades of environmental disruption, and this led to the depopulation and disruption of the local Federmesa culture, the hunter-gatherer population that occupied this part of the world at the time. This culture is identified in the archaeological record by the specific morphology of their tools, which are made from stone, bone and antler. In the various excavations that have taken place, we find barbed points, scrapers, arrowheads, drills, chisels, spatulas and so on. We also find portable art and jewelry such as pendants. These people built hearths within their camps, and used large blocks of stone as anvils. Their actual homes have not survived, but being a highly mobile people, they likely had transportable dwellings, and these were set up around the central half. Archaeologists once believed that human occupation in this region stopped with the Lascia Sea volcanic eruption, as all signs of habitation were found beneath the volcanic layers. It's very possible that some groups moved into rock shelters, and in a 2018 study of the region, a number of potential cave dwellings have been highlighted for further study, and these are likely to be excavated in the future. It is likely that some people attempted to stay local and wait it out, living inside the caves and hoping to re-emerge after the And some people certainly did re-emerge, as there is one late Paleolithic site that sits directly on top of the volcanic deposits. It's located around 10km to the north of the main volcanic crater, a temporary camp that was set up after the eruption and just before the Younger Dryas. The habitation site is located close to the Rhine River, directly on the floodplain, and it contains the remains of roe and red deer, and these appear as charred bones and unburnt teeth. We also find large assemblages of lithic fragments. What's amazing about this site, is that it shows that although the environment was totally and utterly obliterated, although the size of the local population was likely greatly reduced, some hunter-gatherers were quick to move back in. But others certainly didn't, and it's no coincidence we find the emergence of two new cultures shortly after the eruption, the Brom of southern Scandinavia and the Pastunian of north-eastern Europe. It's possible the survivors of the Lascia C volcanic eruption made up these cultures, remnants of the old Federmeter culture that left the region and It is clear that these new cultures did have a lower level of toolmaking skills, and according to the archaeological assemblages, it seems the Brom culture also lost their bow and arrow technology. Archaeologist Felix Reed believes this decline in skills was a direct result of the disruption caused by the Lascia C volcano. For people living here 13,000 years ago, the consequences of this huge natural disaster were devastating. But for us, 13,000 years later, the volcanic deposits are actually extremely helpful. Not only do they leave us a dateable sedimentary horizon right across Europe, which helps us with the chronology of many Paleolithic sites, the volcanic layers have also preserved the historic environment. Inside the airtight ash layers, we find the remains of charred trees, and we also find the hollow imprints of countless decayed trees, and these help the experts to reconstruct the ancient forests. We know there were birch, pine, willow and aspen growing in this region at the time of the eruption, and we even find leaf and needle prints in the ash. In total, more than 100 plant species have been identified inside the volcanic deposits. Many animal bones have also been preserved. We know there were bears, horses, red deer, elk, aurochs, beavers, wolves, bats, ibex and so on. We also find a number of amazingly preserved animal tracks, perfectly preserved inside the ash and from animals as large as bears and as small as a woodland grouse. We even find the imprints of raindrops. But one thing I would love to know is how the eruption affected the people of Europe, not just physically but mentally. An eruption that would have been seen and felt from miles around. It did affect most of the European continent in one way or another. How did the people interpret this epic natural disaster? How did they explain it? Did it become part of their folklore and culture? Did they tie it to their own belief system, to their gods or goddesses or some supernatural power? Was it represented in their art? As I continue my research, these are the things I'm going to consider because an event of this size and scale, together with the aftermath, would have surely stayed within the collective consciousness. This was a truly enormous event. It isn't contentious or debated like the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. It did happen and it was witnessed or at least felt by a large proportion of Europe's population. Thank you very much for watching this episode of Ancient Architects. If you enjoyed the video, please subscribe to the channel, please like the video and please leave a comment below. Thank you very much.