The public and private use of space in Magdalenian societies: Evidence from Oelknitz 3, LOP (Thuringia, Germany) Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser ⇑ MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Germany Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Altertumskunde, Arbeitsbereich Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie, Schloss Monrepos, 56567 Neuwied, Germany article info Article history: Received 10 January 2014 Revision received 3 September 2015 Keywords: Private and public use of space Magdalenian Oelknitz Spatial analysis Dwelling structure Activity zones Settlement behaviour abstract The site of Oelknitz (Thuringia, Germany) is among the largest and in terms of spatial organisation most complex Magdalenian open air sites known to date, rich in evident structures. The current paper reports evidence from the youngest, latest phase of occupation at Oelknitz Structure 3. It is demonstrated that this structure represents a dwelling construction characterised by different spatially distinct activity zones. Several hypotheses can be drawn from this evidence in order to understand basic principles on Magdalenians’ settlement behaviour and their social cohesion. Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The reconstruction of past hominin behaviour is among the most important research goals in current Pleistocene Archaeology. Hominin behavioural strategies based on the study of material remains are often used for inferences on the complexity of hominins’ cognitive capacities and/or the social complexity of hominin populations. The disentangling of past hominin behaviour is closely intertwined with studies on the spatial and temporal resolution of the archaeological substrate analysed (Gaudzinski-Windheuser et al., 2011; Leroi-Gourhan and Brézillon, 1966, 1973; Pigeot, 1984, 1987; Audouze et al., 1984; Julien et al., 1988; Terberger, 1997; Enloe and David, 1989; Bullinger et al., 2006; Pumettaz, 2007; Sensburg, 2007; Sensburg and Moseler, 2007; Street and Turner, 2013). Piece plotting of artefacts and bones and their quantitative spatial distribution, piece plotting of elements with defined taphonomic variables, refitting studies on lithics, stones and bones and micromorphological studies on sedi- ment formation are employed to narrow down the temporal resolu- tion of the past hominin activities and their relation to each other. Two basic concepts were introduced to outline the chronologi- cal and chorological perspectives of the archaeological record: the ‘‘living-floor” and the ‘‘palimpsest” concepts. Whereas the concept of the ‘‘living-floor” encompasses spatially and temporally highly restricted, more or less contemporaneous hominin activities (Villa, 1976, 2004), a palimpsest refers to the superimposition of an unknown number of biotic and abiotic activities and processes which might have become transformed, disrupted and/or partly erased during the process of conflation into a single archaeological spatial unit (e.g. Bailey, 1981, 2007). The introduction of these concepts was not immediately useful with regard to proposals for hominin behavioural strategies during the Pleistocene. Though these concepts sharpened our awareness of the time-scale per- spective in archaeological assemblages this awareness often led either to an overall reluctance to draw wider-ranging inferences on hominin behavioural strategies from the archaeological record or even to an over-interpretation. Various reasons are responsible here. Among them is the complexity of the ‘‘palimpsest” concept (compare Bailey, 2007). Depending on the scale of temporal resolu- tion, all archaeological assemblages must literally be considered as palimpsests (Bailey, 2007). A further aspect refers to the rather ambiguous conceptuality of the ‘‘living floor” that was never quan- titatively defined. Due to the high variability of the Pleistocene archaeological record, these factors, among others, led to a highly inconsistent use of both terms. What we are basically facing here is the lack of correspondence between different scales of time preserved in the archaeological record, i.e. the time and duration of the action of an individual and the geological time represented by the sedimentological milieu in which these actions are embedded (Vaquero et al., 2012a). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2015.09.001 0278-4165/Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ⇑ Address: MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Germany. E-mail address: gaudzinski@rgzm.de Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 40 (2015) 361–375 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa