The "German Albanian Palaeolithic" programme (GAP)

Since 2009 the German Albanian Palaeolithic project (GAP) examines two open-air and three cave sites in different parts of Albania. The data obtained allow a first assessment of the potentials as well as challenges posed by these archives. While evidence for human occupation in the postglacial period and subsequent Holocene is plentiful, older traces are still scanty. Multiple factors are responsible for this bias of which to mention above all is climatic impact and postglacial landscape modification. Two cave sequences in the northern part of Albania show a reworking or erosion of MIS 3 and older deposits. Disturbance of open-air sites in the coastal lowlands is principally caused by weathering and sediment aggradation. While such observations are important for future research strategies, the preserved Palaeolithic sequences already provide the basis for a robust Palaeolithic database. It bears a rich and well-preserved record of Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic occupations. Our investigations give a first insight into human land-use shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum. We thereby add important data to the growing record of Epigravettian and Mesolithic sites in the wider scope of the Eastern Adriatic.