Schweizersbild

Schweizersbild
Location in Switzerland Show map of Switzerland Location in the canton of Schaffhausen Show map of Canton of Schaffhausen
47°43′25.95″N 8°38′23.67″E / 47.7238750°N 8.6399083°E / 47.7238750; 8.6399083
Type	Rock shelter
Periods	Upper Paleolithic (Magdalenian)
Location	Schaffhausen, Switzerland
Site notes
Excavation dates	1891–1893
Archaeologists	Jakob Nüesch

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.¹²

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).

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