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Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–68

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Bronze age dating of timber from the salt-mine at Hallstatt, Austria

Michael Grabnera,�, Andrea Kleina, Daniela Geihofera, Hans Reschreiterb,Fritz E. Barthb, Trivun Sormazc, Rupert Wimmera

aBOKU – University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna. Peter Jordan Strasse 82, A-1190 Vienna, AustriabNatural History Museum Vienna, Prehistoric Department, Burgring 7, A-1010 Vienna, AustriacLabor fur Dendrochronologie, Amt fur Stadtebau, Denkmalpflege und Archaologie, Seefeldstrasse 317, 8008 Zurich, Switzerland

Received 10 December 2005; accepted 3 April 2006

Abstract

The prehistoric salt mine of Hallstatt together with its burial ground is one of the most prominent archaeologicalsites in Austria, which has also given name for the ‘‘Hallstatt period’’ of human civilisation (800–400 BC). Due to theperfect conservation in rock salt a great number of organic materials have been found, among mostly woodenartefacts. Currently, the major archaeological focus is on the Bronze Age salt mining activities with excavations takingplace at the historic Christian von Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen mine.

Chronology building started at the Dachstein plateau, in the vicinity of Hallstatt, where tree-trunks were discoveredin an alpine lake (Schwarzer See) and after recovery a spruce-larch chronology was compiled that dates back to 1475BC. In addition, at the bog Karmoos, very close to the mining place of Hallstatt, preserved trees were intensivelysampled resulting in a spruce chronology reaching even 1523 BC.

Over 500 samples were taken at the Christian von Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen. They also included samples fromthe recently discovered world’s oldest wooden staircase. The spectrum of wooden species encompassed Norway spruce,Silver fir, beech, European larch and maple. We were able to synchronize 128 samples, ending in a 282-year longfloating chronology. While the staircase dated back to 1344 BC, the end year of the floating chronology dated even to1245 BC. Tree felling dates showed clusters within the chronology, providing evidence for archaeologists to findconstruction phases and usage periods.

The Dachstein–Hallstatt spruce chronology currently holds 840 synchronized series, and includes samples from thelake at the Dachstein, from the Karmoos bog at Hallstatt, from the prehistoric Hallstatt salt mine, and from historicalbuildings, as well as living trees. The chronology covers the period between 1523 BC through 2004 AD.r 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Historical dating; Dendrochronology; Hallstatt; Bronze age; Salt mine

Introduction

The prehistoric salt mine Hallstatt together with itsburial ground is one of the most prominent archae-

e front matter r 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

ndro.2006.10.008

ing author. Tel.: +431 47654 4268;

4 4295.

ess: michael.grabner@boku.ac.at (M. Grabner).

ological sites in Austria, which has given also name forthe ‘‘Hallstatt period’’ (800–400 BC). Currently, themajor archaeological focus lays at the Bronze Age saltmining activities. Intensive excavations have taken placefor the past 14 years at the Christian von Tusch-Werk,

Alter Grubenoffen discovered during mining activities in18th century. Due to the perfect preservation in rocksalt, materials and human artefacts of organic origin like

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Fig. 1. Map of Austria and the region of Hallstatt, indicating

the two main sites: Dachstein–Schwarzer See and Hallstatt.

M. Grabner et al. / Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–6862

leather, fur, textiles, ropes made of lime-bast fibres, andnumerous wooden artefacts have been found (Barth andLobisser, 2002). Wooden findings refer to miningtimbers, illumination chips, tool handles, bowls andcups and partially buildings at the surface.

First dendrochronological activities at Hallstatt goback to Hollstein (1974). He took four samples from theHallstatt period mining place Kilb-Werk. It was possibleto synchronize two fir samples (Abies alba Mill.) withthe Villingen fir chronology (Hollstein, 1973), presentingthe end date of 682BC. Another spruce sample (Picea

abies (L.) Karst.) ended at 686BC, while an ash woodsample (Fraxinus excelsior L.) did not crossdate. Sixyears later Hollstein corrected the ending dates of his firsamples to 656BC (Hollstein, 1980). Twenty years laterRuoff and Sormaz (1998, 2000) continued sampling.They took 189 samples across all available periods(Bronze Age, Hallstatt period and Latene period) andcame up with crossdatings against the Villingen–Mag-dalenenberg chronology (Billamboz and Neyses, 1999)at 724 and 695BC. Also, a number of floatingchronologies were established.

The forest sites around Hallstatt built the source forall wood-logs used in prehistoric salt mining and theyare located between 900 and 1500m asl. Most currentlyexisting Bronze Age chronologies were established eitherat lower elevations, e.g. at lake settlements (Becker et al.,1985; Mader and Sormaz, 2000; Billamboz, 2003); or atmuch higher elevations (Nicolussi and Lumassegger,1998; Buntgen et al., 2004; Dellinger et al., 2004). Themost promising already available reference chronologyfor dating timber of the salt mine originate from theDachstein plateau (Grabner et al., 2001), close toHallstatt, and this composite chronology, which datesback to 1474 BC, includes spruce and larch (Larix

decidua Mill.) series that are highly climate-sensitive.This paper is dealing with setting up a Dachs-

tein–Hallstatt chronology and the dating of woodensamples that originate from the Christian von Tusch-

Werk, Alter Grubenoffen Bronze Age salt mines atHallstatt. The chronology building is shown in chron-ological order by presenting data from the majorsampling sites.

Fig. 2. Sampling at Dachstein–Schwarzer See (Sws; A) and

Hallstatt Karmoos (Hkm, B).

Material and methods

Dachstein–Schwarzer See

The Dachstein group is a triassic limestone formationof the northern rim of the alps, with strong karsttopology, high elevations (highest peak 2995m a.s.l.)and plateau characteristics. The distance to Hallstatt isabout 15 km. The small crater-like lake Schwarzer See

(47N31, 13E49; 1450m a.s.l.; see Fig. 1) is surroundedby steep rocky slopes and cliffs. Dead and broken trees

have dropped-off and slid downwards into the water ofthe lake where they became instantly preserved. Duringa 2 weeks campaign in summer 1999 a team of

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Fig. 3. The oldest wooden staircase located at the Christian

von Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen at Hallstatt, Austria.

M. Grabner et al. / Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–68 63

professional divers recruited through the Austrianmilitary and dendrochronologists were lifting trees(Fig. 2A) from underwater to cut off disks, and returnthe trees back into the water after sampling. In total, 211trees were successfully lifted and sampled. The diskswere dried carefully afterwards. In addition, 80 livingtrees (two cores per tree, spruce and larch) were cored atbreast height.

Hallstatt–Karmoos

Hallstatt is located within the northern limestone-alps(Fig. 1), which are characterized by heavy rainfalls andcold temperatures (Bohm, 1992; Auer, 1993). Due to theforest ecotype in the montane region (900–1400m a.s.l.)at Hallstatt the dominating species are spruce, fir andbeech (Fagus sylvatica L.) (Kilian et al., 1994). Thesubalpine region (above 1400m a.s.l.) is dominated byspruce with patches of larch.

In summer 2004 eight small cavities (1� 2m, down tothe clay level) were dug (Fig. 2B) at the Karmoos

bog (47N33, 13E38; 1390m a.s.l.). The bog is borderedby steep slopes, which ensured that trees brokendown by wind or snow did fall into the bog. Thetrunks became instantly preserved in the humid milieu.It was possible to extract more than 300 logs fromdifferent soil depths, with diameters ranging between 5and 50 cm. Disks were cut off and immersed in a rock-salt (NaCl) saturated solution for five weeks. After-wards, the disks were slowly dried. Fifteen living sprucetrees were also sampled by taking two cores per tree atbreast height.

Hallstatt–Christian von Tusch-Werk, Alter

Grubenoffen (Tusch)

The Christian von Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen siteis situated within the plane of the main tunnel Kaiserin

Christina Stollen with the access entrance at 930m a.s.l.The prehistoric salt mining site can be reached bywalking 600m horizontally into this tunnel. Thearchaeological excavations that have been taking place,about 100m below the actual surface, started in the year1992. More than 500 cores from mining timbers weretaken by using a regular dry-wood-corer and a power-drilling machine. The wet cores were glued onto woodensticks and dried carefully.

Most of the timbers used in the mines havebroken into pieces as soon – in prehistoric time –surface material, i.e. mostly clay, has filled up themine. However, a recent discovery (Reschreiterand Barth, 2005) has revealed a complete woodenstaircase that is according to current knowledgesupposed to be the world’s oldest wooden staircase(see Fig. 3).

Hallstatt-recent living trees (Rec)

Living trees of the species spruce, fir and beech weresampled at four different sites by taking two cores pertree at breast height, with at least 13 trees per site. Thesefour sites were located between 900 and 1450m a.s.l.

Hallstatt-historical samples (His)

More than 200 wood samples from historic buildingsand mines were taken around the salt mining sites atHallstatt. Since it was not possible to access this sitethrough roads or ox-paths prior the 1960s, all large-sized prehistoric and historic timbers originate fromcloseby forest sites.

Measurements and data treatment

Dry disks and mounted cores were sanded untilindividual tracheids became visible. Wood specieswere identified by microscopic analysis (Wagenfuhr,1989) and the tree-rings were measured to the nearest0.01mm using the LINTAB measuring device(www.rinntech.de). All ring-width series of living treeswere cross-dated (Stokes and Smiley, 1996; Swetnam

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e n

No.of

series

m.segm.

length

m.series

intercorr.

av.m.

sens.

Datingwith

S.Germany

Fir

Villingen

Fir

M.Europe

Oak

Ovl

Glk

TvH

Ovl

Glk

TvH

Ovl

Glk

TvH

9395

202

0.570

0.201

1166

——

219

57

5.7

3472

54

3.8

8302

103

0.511

0.203

1166

58

5.3

219

——

3520

——

2128

62

0.460

0.227

0—

—0

——

282

——

8697

159

0.515

0.201

1166

——

219

60

5.5

3520

——

11051

140

0.471

0.198

1166

52

4.5

219

60

5.5

3523

53

4.3

8840

134

0.508

0.184

1166

60

9.8

219

62

5.7

3520

53

4.5

Tusc

h-W

erk

,A

lter

Gru

ben

off

en(Tusch),composite

chronologyofSwsandHkm;composite

chronologyofSws,

allstatt-livingtrees(R

ec);andthemonospecificspruce

chronology(Sws,Hkm,Tusch,His,Rec).(PA¼

spruce,

length,m.series

intercorr.¼

meanseries

intercorrelation,av.m.sens.¼

averagemeansensitivity,S.Germany

enheim,Villingen

Fir¼

Villingen

firchronology(811–593BC)rLandesamtfurDenkmalpflegeHem

menhofen,

rfurDendrochronologie

Zurich

andUniversity

Stuttgart

Hohenheim;Ovl¼

overlap,Glk¼

Gleichlaufigkeit,

M. Grabner et al. / Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–6864

et al., 1985) and checked for dating and measurementerrors using COFECHA (Holmes, 1983), and by visualsynchronization.

Ring series were standardized to remove low-fre-quency variability that included age-related trends,stand development and local disturbances (Cook et al.,1990). A cubic smoothing spline with 50% cut-off at 30-year wavelength was applied to each series and theoriginal measured values divided by the fitted curvevalues (Cook and Peters, 1981).

Tree-ring series of the prehistoric samples were datedusing t-values and the Gleichlaufigkeit computed by theTSAP software (www.rinntech.de), supplemented byvisual checking of the plots. The first step was tocrossdate the unknown samples against each other,following Baillie (1995). These floating series werechecked against existing chronologies (East-Austrianfir, -spruce and -larch chronologies r BOKU Vienna(Wimmer and Grabner, 1998; Grabner and Wimmer,2006); Southern Germany fir chronology (820–1985AD) r University Stuttgart Hohenheim; Villingen-Magdalenenberg fir chronology (811–593 BC) r Land-esamt fur Denkmalpflege Hemmenhofen (Billambozand Neyses, 1999); and the middle European oakchronology (5100 BC–1996 AD) r Labor fur Dendro-chronologie Zurich and University Stuttgart Hohen-heim (Becker et al., 1985).

Chronologies were compiled by calculating meanvalues of dated and indexed tree-ring series, andcompared then with existing chronologies using TSAP(www.rinntech.de). Dating quality was also checked byrunning the COFECHA software (Holmes, 1983).

Table

1.

Main

statisticsofthechronologies

Chronology

Species

First

year

Last

year

Tim

spa

Sws

PA,LD

�1475

2003

347

Hkm

PA,LD

�1523

2004

352

Tusch

PA,AA,LD,FS,AS�1526�1245

28

Sws,Hkm

PA,AA,LD

�1523

2004

352

Sws,Hkm,Tusch,His,Rec

PA,AA,LD

�1526

2004

353

Sws,Hkm,Tusch,His,Rec

PA

�1523

2004

352

Dachstein–Schwarzer

See

(Sws),Hallstatt–Karm

oos(H

km),Hallstatt–

Chri

stia

nvo

n

Hkm,Tusch(excludingbeech

andmaple),Hallstatt-historicalsamples(H

is)andH

LD¼

larch,AA¼

fir,FS¼

beech,AS¼

maple;m.segm.length¼

meansegment

Fir¼

southernGermanyfirchronology(820–1985AD)r

University

Stuttgart

Hoh

M.EuropeOak¼

middle

Europeanoakchronology(5100BC–1996AD)r

Labo

TvH¼

t-valueaccordingto

Hollstein).

Results and discussion

Dachstein–Schwarzer See

In total, 211 trees were successfully lifted andsampled. In the samples, 66% of them were spruce,21% larch and 13% belonged to stone pine (Pinus

cembra L.), which reflects approximately the today’scomposition of species in that area (Kilian et al., 1994).

Due to poor crossdating stone pine had to be removedfrom further consideration. It was possible to crossdatemost of the spruce and larch samples resulting into acomposite chronology dating back to 1475 BC (Table 1).The mean age of the trees was 202 years; the maximumnumber of tree-rings was 528 in spruce and 718 in larch.The composite chronology was then compared andcross-correlated with regional standards for larch andstone pine of Tyrol and the Swiss Alps (Nicolussi andLumassegger, 1998), which resulted in a 3474-year longspruce/larch chronology (Table 1, Fig. 4). Statisticsfor the Dachstein–Schwarzer See (Sws) chronology(Table 1) show that the spruce and larch trees correlate

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Dachstein-Schwarzer See (Sws)

Hallstatt-Karmoos (Hkm)

Hallstatt-Tuschwerk (Tusch)

Sws + Hkm

60

20

30

10

40

20

num

ber

of

seri

es

80

40

200

100

–1600 –600–1100 –100 400 900 1400 1900

Sws + Hkm + Tusch + His + Rec

Fig. 4. Number of series for each chronology: Dachstein–

Schwarzer See (Sws) including larch and spruce samples;

Hallstatt–Karmoos (Hkm) including spruce and larch samples;

Christian von Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen (Tusch) including

spruce, fir, larch, beech and maple samples; composite of Sws

and Hkm; composite of Sws, Hkm, Tusch (without beech and

maple), Hallstatt-historical samples (His) and Hallstatt-living

trees (Rec). (spruce ¼ light grey; larch ¼ dark grey; fir ¼

black; beech and maple ¼ white).

M. Grabner et al. / Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–68 65

well (mean series intercorrelation ¼ 0.57) both exhibit-ing a high mean sensitivity (0.201) which is due to thestrong influence of summer temperatures on tree growth(Gindl et al., 1998). Sample depth in segments before 70AD of this chronology was poor (Fig. 4), and dominatedby larch wood.

Hallstatt–Karmoos

It was possible to extract 313 tree trunks out of thebog. The variation of wood-species was dominated byspruce (94%), followed by fir (3%) and larch (3%). Thetree-ring series indicate impacts coming from foreststand development and competition. Successful syn-chronization was possible by detrending tree-ring series,poor correlations were found on the raw data. Cross-dating was done by internal synchronization and bychecking the dates against the Sws chronology. In total,302 tree-ring series were synchronized and with inclu-sion of the living trees a chronology reaching back to1523BC resulted (Table1, Fig. 4). Statistics of theHallstatt–Karmoos (Hkm) chronology show goodsynchronization (Table 1). After adding Sws and Hkmdata, possible dating errors were checked with COFE-CHA, resulting in a 3528 year long chronology with

high series intercorrelations and average mean sensitiv-ity (Table 1).

The stem accumulation varied over time (Fig. 4):several phases had much higher numbers of samples, i.e.900–750 BC, 250–480 AD, 800–1050 AD and 1180–1280AD. For most of these periods showing higher sampledepth in the bog of Hkm, sample depth was also higherat Sws (i.e. 250–480, 800–1050 and 1180–1280 AD),which suggests that common reasons like heavy snowfalls or higher storm frequencies might be behind thiscoincidence.

Hallstatt–Christian von Tuschwerk–Alter

Grubenoffen (Tusch)

Sampling activities have yielded so far cores fromover 500 mining timbers, including the world’s oldestwooden staircase (Fig. 3). The spectrum of the woodenspecies comprises 47% spruce, 43% fir, 8% beech and1% for larch and maple (Acer spp.) each. The mainwood species used in recent mining are spruce and fir(Sell, 1989; Bosshard, 1974). Fewer samples were foundfor the species beech, maple and larch. When comparedwith the forest ecotype (Kilian et al., 1994) suggested forthat time, a far high proportion of beech-wood could beexpected. However, we hypothesize that beech woodwas mostly used as fire wood. The small number of larchfound in the mine indicates that most larches were usedfor housing constructions, as supported by the fewfindings of buildings (Blockbauten, Barth and Lobisser,2002).

It was possible to compile a 282-year long floatingchronology by synchronizing 128 samples, including thecores from the wooden staircase. This floating chronol-ogy includes spruce, fir, larch, beech and maple samples.The clustering of mining timbers with the same fellingdate is an important source of information for archae-ologists about construction phases and time-spans ofusing the mining cavities. Statistics for the floatingchronology showed good overall synchronization (meanseries intercorrelation ¼ 0.46), even though the meansegment length was short (62 tree-rings) with five woodspecies included (Table 1).

The mine timber floating chronology (Tusch; Table 1,Fig. 4) was crossdated in various ways. The crossdatingwith the Sws chronology led to the ending date of 1245BC. The key figures for this dating were (computed byTSAP): Overlap ¼ 232 years; Gleichlaufigkeit ¼ 63%;t-value (Hollstein) ¼ 4.8; t-value (Bailie–Pilcher) ¼ 4.7.According to Eckstein and Bauch (1969) due to thelength of the series (overlap is 232 years) the dating ishighly significant with po0.001. Billamboz (2005)mentioned three quality classes of dating (A, B and C)and the Tusch chronology would comply with class A.At this stage it was not possible to synchronize the

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Fig. 5. Grid graphs of all 128 synchronized samples from the

Christian von Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen (Tusch); the world’s

oldest wooden staircase is indicated. (spruce ¼ light grey;

M. Grabner et al. / Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–6866

Tusch chronology with other major standard chronol-ogies such as the middle European oak chronology. Thedating with the Hkm chronology showed no significantresult, while dating with the composite chronology ofSws and Hkm presented weak results for 1245 BC. Toconfirm the ending date of the Tusch chronology, thedata sets of Sws were pooled with Hkm, Tusch (withexclusion of beech and maple samples), the historicalsamples and the living trees from Hallstatt (His andRec). The dates of the Tusch samples were confirmed byCOFECHA (Table 1). There were no exclusions ofmining timbers due to wrong dating, or due to weakseries intercorrelations. The Dachstein–Hallstatt chron-ology (in total 1051 series) that has mainly sprucesamples and small numbers of larch and fir seriesincluded showed good interseries correlation (0.471) at amean segment length of 140 tree-rings. The chronologyis 3531 years long, is spanning from 1526 BC through2004 AD, and connects with the southern German firchronology (Glk ¼ 52; TvH ¼ 4.5), the Villingen Firchronology (Glk ¼ 60; TvH ¼ 5.5), as well as themiddle European oak chronology (Glk ¼ 53;TvH ¼ 4.3) (Table 1). The monospecific spruce chron-ology (1523 BC to 2004 AD) showed better internalstatistics (interseries correlation ¼ 0.508) and highercorrelations to the southern German fir chronology(Glk ¼ 60; TvH ¼ 9.8), the Villingen Fir chronology(Glk ¼ 62; TvH ¼ 5.7), as well as the middle Europeanoak chronology (Glk ¼ 53; TvH ¼ 4.5) than the com-posite chronology (Table 1).

The dating of the 128 samples from the Christian von

Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen resulted in a variety ofend dates between 1458 and 1245 BC (Fig. 5). Therewere several phases with many samples dating to thesame year: 1382, 1366, 1344 and 1343, 1277 and 1245BC. These phases might be attributed to intensiveprehistoric salt-mining. All samples dated to 1344 and1343BC belonged to the well preserved world’s oldestwooden staircase (Mielke, 1993; Reschreiter and Barth,2005; Figs. 3 and 5). The staircase is split into two parts;the lower part built 1343 BC, and upper one in 1344 BC.All wood components of the staircase presented waneyedges dating to the same year, making it clear that thestaircase was manufactured at once. This staircase is amasterpiece of prehistoric handicraft (Reschreiter andBarth, 2005). The steps itself can be adjusted to the slopeof the whole staircase by a simple turning and fixingprocess. Steps and inlay-boards are alternating mountedin the groove at the stringers. Due to the rectangulartenon at both ends of the steps, the angle between thestringer and the step can be adjusted. The orientation ofthe step is fixed by the following inlay-board. Thestringers are fixed together by small tree trunks acting asa bolt. The steps and the boards in between are split ofsmall tree trunks (spruce and fir). Also the stringers andthe bolt were made of spruce and fir wood, only one

larch ¼ dark grey; fir ¼ black; beech and maple ¼ white).

ARTICLE IN PRESSM. Grabner et al. / Dendrochronologia 24 (2007) 61–68 67

fixing element is of maple. The staircase was probablypre-produced outside and assembled according to thecurrent situation in the mine, i.e. adjusting the slope(Reschreiter and Barth, 2005).

Conclusions and future perspective

Intensive sampling of living trees, prehistoric andhistoric wooden constructions took place in the regionof Hallstatt. Sub fossil tree trunks preserved in the waterof an alpine lake and from a high elevation bog werelifted and sampled. It was possible to synchronize thesesamples and to combine to a long chronology, bridgingfrom 1526 BC to 2004 AD. Using the new chronology, itwas for the first time possible to date Bronze Agesamples from Hallstatt. Out of more than 500 samples128 cores were dated. The recently found world’s oldestwooden staircase was dated to 1344 BC.

Since all the trees are well defined in terms of theirgrowing site a high potential for long-term climatereconstructions is anticipated. Therefore more samplesin bogs of Hallstatt should be lifted an analysed.

The archaeological excavations in the Christian von

Tusch-Werk, Alter Grubenoffen will be continued. A lotof samples out of this excavation are expected for thenext years. These wooden artefacts will be sampled anddendrochronological dated. Due to the long history ofexcavations in Hallstatt a lot of wooden samples fromall periods (Bronze Age to Latene-period) are existing.All these samples will be dendrochronological datedusing the new Hallstatt–Dachstein chronology.

Acknowledgements

We thank Andre Billamboz (Hemmenhofen, Ger-many) for providing the Villingen chronology. Settingup the Dachstein–Schwarzer See chronology was fundedby the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF 9200-GEO),the excavations at the Hallstatt–Karmoos bog werepartially founded by the EU-project ‘‘ALP-IMP’’(EVK2-CT-2002-00148), and the dating of the prehis-toric samples was supported by the Hochschuljubi-laumsstiftung of the City of Vienna and the governmentof Upper Austria (Kulturabteilung).

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