mesolithic

In the summer of 2015 I visited Steinzeitpark Dithmarschen (DE) where an international team of experimental archaeologists immersed in a six week living experiment, to live as much as possible the middle stone age life of the hunter-gatherers. In 2018 the same park hosted the biggest stone age gathering since the stone age. I took this opportunity to finish his photo series on life in the Mesolithic.

Start slideshow
The hunter-gatherers of the middle stone age lived as semi-nomads, building relatively small huts as dwellings. They usually stay at the same place for one…
Hunter-gatherers get all their food from the wild. Hunting provides only a small part of the diet, most of the food is gathered. Hazelnuts form a stable and…
Master flintknapper Morten Kutschera shows the techniques to make specialized tools out of flint. Hitting a flint stone with a hammer stone in exactly the right…
Hunting is done in small groups, in this case led by camp elder Werner Pfeifer. Different kinds of animals are hunted with specialized weapons that are…
Hunter-gatherers operate from different camps that are spread out over a large territory. Usually, there's one basecamp where the whole community comes…
The skin of the animal is an important resource, for it provides leather for clothes or furs for when it gets cold. Doctor in prehistoric tanning Theresa Kamper…
Nothing of the animal has to go to waste. The guts for instance can be used to make very strong thread. Many of today's hunter-gatherer societies don't have a…
Next to hunting and gathering, fishing provides an important part of the diet. The oldest canoe ever found was dug out from a single log. It was found in Pesse…
There is no known example in the world of a culture that did not develop music. It's a highly important social phenomenon that brings a clan together and…
The oldest known saunas date back 10 000 years ago. A small hut was built with a pit in the middle. Outside the hut, stones are heated in a big pyre for several…