Schweizersbild

Schweizersbild is a rock shelter from the Paleolithic period, located in the municipality of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, at the foot of a southeast-facing cliff near a spring. Beneath the natural rock overhang, remains of a significant Upper Paleolithic (Magdalenian) habitation (camp) dating to approximately 15,000–12,700 BC were discovered.^[1][2]

The site was discovered in 1891 by Jakob Nüesch, who conducted archaeological excavations there from 1891 to 1893. Beneath a gray archaeological layer containing remains from post-Paleolithic periods (including Neolithic tombs)^[3] were the habitation levels from the Upper Paleolithic. Below this, a layer containing rodent remains but practically no artifacts covered a bed of Ice Age pebbles.^[1] Some of the smaller skeletons have initially been interpreted as the remains of pygmies,^[4] but they may rather represent shorter individuals.^[5]

The stratigraphy cannot be reconstructed with certainty. Lower down, a second layer of rodent debris also contained remains of collared lemming, Arctic fox, reindeer, wild horse, mountain hare, as well as a rib fragment from a woolly rhinoceros. Above this, a yellow archaeological layer yielded primarily bones of reindeer, wild horse, mountain hare, and red deer. In this layer, a hearth and a flint knapping workshop were also observed.^[1]

The artifacts uncovered by the excavators include several hundred tools made of flint (including shouldered points), bone, and antler (notably double-beveled spear points, harpoons, awls, perforated batons, needles, and ornaments).^[1]

The Schweizersbild site is especially known for the pieces of Paleolithic mobiliary art discovered there, notably a slate plaquette engraved on both sides with animal figures and a perforated baton made of reindeer antler depicting two wild horses in a line.^[6] The engravings are more stylized than those from objects found at Kesslerloch, and executed with a more fluid line. A small jet statuette representing a woman, found in 1954 in the spoil from Nüesch's excavation, is less well known.^[1] The original is exhibited at the Museum of Cultures (Basel).

• Perforated baton with two wild horses (Swiss National Museum)
• Copy of the woman statuette
• Engraved slate plaquette

• List of caves in Switzerland
• Paleolithic in Switzerland

 This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC-BY SA. Text taken from Schweizersbild​, Markus Höneisen, Historical Dictionary of Switzerland. Translated by Laurent Auberson.

• Nüesch, Jakob: Das Schweizersbild, eine Niederlassung aus palaeolithischer und neolithischer Zeit, 1896.
• Höneisen, Markus; Peyer, Sabine: Schweizersbild – ein Jägerlager der Späteiszeit. Beiträge und Dokumente zur Ausgrabung vor 100 Jahren, 1994.

Media related to Schweizersbild at Wikimedia Commons

• Schweizersbild on Hikr