As early as 2016, the local researcher Gilbert Schmelter made a special discovery: his find, a “core”, i.e. a prepared raw piece, had LWL archaeologist Prof. Dr. Michael Baales to be tens of thousands of years old, dating directly to the time of the Neanderthals. This find from Lennestadt-Trockenbrück was the first evidence that the famous prehistoric people also stayed in today’s Olpe district.
Now there is a second, very similar piece. “Interestingly, the new core was found not far from Trockenbrück, but on the southern side of the Lenne, west of Grevenbrück, directly at the Attendorn border,” reports the LWL archaeologist. The surroundings of larger river valleys were popular with Palaeolithic hunters and gatherers, as there was plenty of game to be expected here. In addition, such valleys were important routes on their migrations.
Like the first one, the new core was also made from the local black slate. The Neanderthals cut off pieces, so-called flakes, from this prepared raw piece in order to use them as knives or as starting pieces for the manufacture of tools. “The core from Grevenbrück, which is a good ten centimeters in size, was prepared in such a way that the tees were quite large and thin,” said Baales.
The find was noticed by the Olper local researcher Johannes Heyermann a few years ago. His real age and his special meaning only became clear now. Heyermann, who had searched the fields of the district of Olpe for archaeological finds for many decades, gave his collection, which mainly consists of Stone Age finds, to the archaeologists of the LWL Olpe branch for safekeeping.
“We are very grateful, because unfortunately such collections disappear far too often,” says Baales. “In this way, the research findings are preserved and we can continue to appreciate Johannes Heyermann’s decades of hard work.”