Alfred Dieck

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Alfred Dieck (born April 4, 1906 in Schönebeck ; † January 7, 1989 in Bremen ) was a German researcher of prehistory who, from the 1930s until his death , dealt intensively with European bog bodies and published numerous publications on them. However, his works are controversial in professional circles.

Life

Alfred Dieck was born in the former district of Groß Salze in what is now the Bad Salzelmen district of Schönebeck (Elbe). After leaving school, he first studied theology , and from 1934, then prehistory and racial and folklore at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg . By Hans Hahne , director of the Provincial Museum Halle (Saale) and associate professor at the University of Halle, Diecks interest was for the bog body research aroused. Under Hahne's successor Walter Schulz , Dieck did his doctorate in 1939 on the subject of the importance of the bog and water finds of the first centuries of our era, with special consideration of wooden figures, bog corpses and reports of human sacrifices . The manuscript of his dissertation , however, was destroyed by bombing during World War II . Dieck married Charlotte Stübing, and from this marriage they had a son and a daughter. Six months after his doctorate, he was drafted into the front in October 1939 .

After being seriously wounded and released from American captivity , Dieck remained without a permanent job for a long time. He worked in various places, including for a long time in the Bad Reichenhall and Salzburg area , where he was the honorary director of the moor museum in Bad Wimsbach-Neydharting in Upper Austria. Finally he found a job in the public service of Lower Saxony , where he stayed until his retirement in 1971.

Create

Due to his cultural-historical interest, Dieck devoted himself to archaeological and cultural-historical studies as well as building up extensive collections of material on his individual fields of study. He concentrated his cultural-historical and folklore interest on the collection of unpublished Danish folk tales , materials on the cultural history of the domestic dog and on seasonal folk customs from different parts of Germany. Dieck's particular interest, however, was peat archeology and, above all, research on bog corpses. After his death, his archives went to the Institute for Monument Preservation , Department of Soil Monument Preservation , in Hanover, his collection of hair and textile samples, as well as tissue samples from bog corpses, went to the Department of Prehistory of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover.

Bog corpse research

Dieck visited numerous museums and researched archives across Europe. He had conversations with those who found bog finds, bog workers and their families and wrote them down. Over the course of 50 years, he built up an extensive archive of bog corpses, including a collection of hair and clothing samples. Dieck tried to establish the terms hominid moor found, which he had coined for human corpses preserved in bogs, instead of the term bog corpse and vertebrate bog finds for animals preserved in the bog, but these terms were not accepted in the scientific community.

In more than 180 essays and publications, Alfred Dieck vigorously opposed the prevailing view that the occurrence of bog corpses was solely a geographically and culturally limited phenomenon from the first centuries before and after Christ. He made it clear that the oldest bog bodies come from the Mesolithic and the youngest from the time of the Second World War. Against the prevailing opinion that this group of finds was limited to Ireland, Denmark, northern Germany and the northern Netherlands, he rightly objected that bog bodies have also been found in Norway, Sweden and southern Germany. Alfred Dieck's merit in researching bog corpses lies primarily in this broadening of the perspective.

Honors

Dieck had been a member of the Archaeological Commission for Lower Saxony since 1962 , in 1974 he became an honorary member of the Ethnomedicine Working Group , and in 1987 an honorary member of the German Society for Moor and Peat Studies DGMT.

Alfred Dieck and the problem of bog corpse research

Alfred Dieck's scientific work is now considered controversial in professional circles, as he published many of his submitted finds without, or at least with contradicting and non-verifiable sources . The number of bog bodies listed in his works rose steadily. In 1939 he listed only 120 bog bodies, in 1951 already 160, in 1958 500, in 1965 around 700, in 1972 around 1350 and finally in its last compilation from 1986 more than 1,850 bog body finds in Europe. In the course of his five decades of research, Dieck published not only overview works on different regions, but also numerous articles on special topics such as stomach and intestinal examinations of bog bodies, the corpses of young girls or scalped, circumcised and tattooed bog bodies.

However, Dieck had never carried out tests on bog bodies himself. His focus was on find reports, which he gathered from archives and in discussions with finders or their descendants. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly clear that he was only very uncritical of these sources and that he regarded all the collected mentions of bog bodies as factual reports. Many of his sources are no longer verifiable today, as his estate often only contains transcripts of conversations or handwritten copies of reports. In addition, Dieck often cited sources in his publications that he himself stated as missing , lost in the war or in preparation for printing , but which then never appeared. Of his main work, laid out as a three-volume work: The European Moor Corpses (Hominid Moor Finds) , a compilation of all known European moor corpses, only the catalog section appeared in 1965 as the first volume in the series. The other two volumes with the scientific evaluation and the source material did not appear.

For the first time in 1981 the German prehistorian Klaus Raddatz expressed serious concerns about the credibility of Dieck's publications. In several articles he questioned numerous unusual finds submitted by Dieck, pointed to the indistinct and no longer verifiable sources and contradicted some of Dieck's reports on the basis of concrete examples. At the same time, he criticizes the uncritical takeover of Dieck's publications by publishers and academic colleagues, which in his opinion had unusually sensational content that was recognizable even for laypeople. However, due to the lack of access to Dieck's estate, Raddatz was ultimately unable to substantiate his points of criticism beyond any doubt.

Processing of the estate

In 1993, Sabine Eisenbeiß examined, as part of her master's thesis, reports on bog bodies from Lower Saxony in the estate of Alfred Dieck at the University of Hamburg , under the supervision of Michael Fee and Elke Heege , the Lower Saxony bog body finds were source-critical and was only able to confirm 70 of 655 bog bodies by independent sources. The parallel review of reports on Schleswig-Holstein moor corpses by Katharina von Haugwitz also came to a similar conclusion as part of her master's thesis. Both came to the conclusion that many of the sources given by Dieck did not stand up to critical scrutiny because they were unclear, unclear or contradictory. Due to the lack of evidence, a large part of the bog body finds listed by him appear to be so-called paper corpses . While Alfred Dieck was still alive, Wijnand van der Sanden checked his find reports on the Dutch finds in the course of his dissertation on Dutch moorland corpses Mens en moeras and also devoted himself to the problem of "unverifiable sources" in a later publication. In 1995 he carried out a series of 14 C-dates on various bog bodies, for which he also used tissue material from Dieck's private collection.

criticism

In the course of their independently conducted reviews of Dieck's estate, Eisenbeiß and van der Sanden gained the impression that Alfred Dieck was increasingly creating his own imaginary world with his moor research, which he maintained for many decades, including externally. Van der Sanden suspects that Dieck above all documented every reference, no matter how improbable, to bog corpses in order to preserve them for posterity. However, he also found that the sources cited by Dieck were almost entirely non-verifiable, he prettied up reports on finds , invented them and in some cases published them several times with contradicting content. In addition to all of this, Dieck cited publications that did not exist and specialist congresses that never took place. Both come to the conclusion that Dieck's publications are completely worthless from an antiquity point of view and that they are only relevant for psychological studies. Both recommend that Dieck's scientific papers no longer be used for archaeological research. Eisenbeiß and van der Sanden also criticize the almost four decades of uncritical reception of Dieck's publications in the scientific community with their structures, which have made it possible for Dieck to publish his articles even in the most prestigious journals over the decades.

aftermath

Dieck and his "fake" bog bodies were the subject of contributions in various programs on public television in Germany, such as W wie Wissen on ARD on March 19, 2006, Quarks and Co in January 2008 and the science magazine Nano from 3sat .

See also: Fraud and Forgery in Science under Archeology .

Works

An incomplete selection of publications by Alfred Dieck. Elke Heege submitted a complete list of publications in 1991 in the Telma magazine .

Monographs

  • The importance of the bog and water finds of the first centuries of our era with special consideration of the wooden figures, bog corpses and reports of human sacrifices . Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg 1939, DNB  570082692 .
  • The moor: fates and riddles . In: Jux-Jugend-Lesebogen . No. 180 , 1965, DNB  36672424X .
  • Moorbutter: a cultural-historical study . In: Series of publications by the International Moor Museum . tape 2 . Provincial publisher, Linz / Vienna / Frankfurt (Main) 1962, OCLC 14615042 .
  • The hiking musicians of Salzgitter: A contribution to the economic and cultural history of the northern Harz foreland in the 19th century. Reise, Göttingen 1962, DNB  450930297 .
  • The European bog body finds (hominid bog finds) . In: Göttingen writings on prehistory and early history . tape 5 . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1965 (Dieck's main work, of which only volume 1/3 appeared).
  • Bog bodies . Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover (between 1970 and 1974).
  • Legends, fairy tales and stories about Karlstein in the Berchtesgadener Land district . in the dictation wording, some of which is 50 years old, from the very elderly from Karlstein a. Surroundings / collected by Alfred Dieck. Ed .: Local council Karlstein. Karlstein (Berchtesgadener Land) 1981, DNB  820093939 .

Essays / Articles

  • The not yet recovered bog body from Bonstorf, district of Celle, from the year 1450 and the bog body from Rieper Moor, district of Rotenburg (Hanover), found in 1751 . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 8 , 1957, ISSN  0342-0736 , p. 274-284 .
  • On the history of bog body research and interpretation of bog bodies . In: Annual publication for Central German prehistory . No. 41/42 , 1958, pp. 41-42 .
  • On the etymology of the terms “moor” and “peat” . In: Jiří Kolominský (ed.): Sborník referatů VII. Mezinárodního Sjezdu pro Všeobecný Výzkum Rašelin. 15-19 Zárí 1960 Františkovy Lázně. = Report on the VII. International Congress for Universal Peatland Research . IGM, Vaduz 1960, p. 161-165 .
  • The bog corpse from Günzer See near Stralsund from the summer of 1879 and the problem of peat butter . In: Greifswald-Stralsund yearbook . tape 1 , 1961, pp. 26-39 .
  • On the biostratinomy of hominid and vertebrate bog finds (bog corpses) . In: Communications from the State Geological Institute . No. 31 , 1962, pp. 358-361 .
  • Archaeological evidence of the practice of scalping in Europe . In: New excavations and research in Lower Saxony . No. 4 , 1969, p. 359-371 .
  • Funn af menneskelik i norske myrer (Human finds in Norwegian moors) . In: Særtrykk av Meddelelser fra Det norske myrselskap . tape 3 , 1969, p. 1–7 (Norwegian, with a German summary).
  • Preliminary notifications about bog bodies in Bavaria . In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . No. 3 , 1973, ISSN  0342-734X , p. 463-468 .
  • The bog body of Bernuthsfeld and her companions in fate . In: Yearbook of the Society for Fine Arts and Patriotic Antiquities in Emden . tape 54 , 1974, pp. 5-22 .
  • Germanic warriors: literary mentions and bog body finds . In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . No. 5 , 1975, p. 93-96 .
  • Tattoos in prehistoric times . In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . No. 6 , 1976, p. 169-173 .
  • Secrets of the bog. Bog finds reports of human fates and ancient beliefs . In: Reports of the Physical-Medical Society of Würzburg. NF band 85 , 1977, pp. 75-90 .
  • Evidence of engagement customs in the older Bronze Age burial mounds through findings from Salzburg bog bodies? In: Communications from the Society for Regional Studies in Salzburg . tape 117 , 1977, pp. 95-105 .
  • The man in the salt. Prehistory finds from the Dürrnberg near Hallein and Hallstatt . In: Heimatblätter (supplement to the Reichenhaller Tageblatt and Freilassinger Anzeiger) . No. 5/7 , December 12, 1979.
  • Neolithic to the Migration Period "commercial" bundles of bogs. Material presentation and attempt at interpretation . In: Telma . tape 9 , 1979, pp. 63-74 .
  • The Man in Salt Prehistory finds from the Dürrnberg near Hallein and Hallstatt . In: Heimatblätter (supplement to the Reichenhaller Tageblatt and Freilassinger Anzeiger) . No. 1 , 1980.
  • Circumcision of women and men in prehistoric times . In: Curare . No. 4 ,, 1981, p. 77-84 .
  • Surgical removal of the uvula (uvula excision) in a Neolithic Westphalian bog body and its prehistoric to prehistoric and ethnological counterparts . In: Telma . tape 11 , 1981, pp. 85-96 .
  • The bog body from Obenaltendorf near Stade . In: Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein (Hrsg.): Stader yearbook. NF . tape 73 , 1983, ISSN  0930-8946 , p. 7-56 .
  • Egyptian mummies and European bog bodies as official remedies in Central and Western Europe . In: Curare . tape 7 , 1984, ISSN  0344-8622 , pp. 211-232 .
  • Bog corpses and hair victims from bogs in Bremen and Bremerhaven . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch . tape 62 , 1984, pp. 123-138 .
  • Early Bronze Age medicinal plants against liver and gall bladder ailments. Burial goods in the area north of the Weserbergland, at the same time a contribution to head finds with oak leaves in the moor . In: Rotenburger Schriften . No. 66-67 , 1987, pp. 235-242 .

Editing

Translations

literature

  • Sabine Eisenbeiß: Bog-bodies in Lower Saxony - rumors and facts: an analysis of Alfred Dieck's sources of information . In: Andreas Bauerochse, et al. (Ed.): Peatlands: archaeological sites, archives of nature, nature conservation, wise use; proceedings of the Peatland Conference 2002 in Hannover, Germany . Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2003, ISBN 3-89646-026-9 , pp. 143-150 (English).
  • Wijnand van der Sanden : Alfred Dieck and the Dutch bog bodies: some critical marginal notes . In: Lower Saxony Regional Association for Prehistory (ed.): The customer NF . No. 44 , 1993, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 127-139 .
  • Hermann Behrens , Elke Heege : Obituary for Alfred Dieck April 4, 1906 - January 7, 1989 . In: Lower Saxony Regional Association for Prehistory (ed.): The customer NF . No. 40 , 1989, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 227-230 .
  • Ekkehard Schröder: The Ethnomedicine Working Group greets Alfred Dieck on his 80th birthday . In: Curare . No. 9/1 , 1986, pp. 3–4 ( agem-ethnomedizin.de [PDF; 28 kB ; accessed on February 7, 2011]).
  • Elke Heege: Bibliography of the moor archaeologist Dr. Alfred Dieck: 1906 to 1989: Honorary member of the DGMT . In: Telma . tape 21 , 1991, ISSN  0340-4927 , pp. 321-338 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hermann Behrens , Elke Heege : Obituary for Alfred Dieck April 4, 1906 - January 7, 1989 . In: Lower Saxony Regional Association for Prehistory (ed.): The customer NF . No. 40 , 1989, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 227-230 .
  2. ↑ Elke Heege : Bibliography of the moor archaeologist Dr. Alfred Dieck: 1906 to 1989: Honorary member of the DGMT . In: Telma . tape 21 , 1991, ISSN  0340-4927 , pp. 321-338 .
  3. ^ Rudolf Grenz : The moor body finds from East Prussia . In: Prussen-Freundeskreis Tolkemita (ed.): Tolkemita texts . No. 60 . Dieburg 2001, p. 55-71 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Wijnand van der Sanden , Sabine Eisenbeiß: Imaginary people - Alfred Dieck and the bog bodies of northwest Europe . In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . No. 36 , 2006, ISSN  0342-734X , p. 111-122 (English).
  5. ↑ Klaus Raddatz : 6. Nail cleaner (ear spoon?) . In: Sörup I: An Iron Age burial ground in fishing . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1981, ISBN 3-529-01146-0 , pp. 36–37 , note 19 . referring to Bieck's article: tattoos in prehistoric times . In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . No. 6 , 1976, ISSN  0342-734X , p. 169-173 .
  6. ↑ Klaus Raddatz: About finds of linear ceramics from moors in the north German lowlands . In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . No. 28 , 1998, ISSN  0342-734X , p. 373-377 .
  7. ↑ Klaus Raddatz: To the washer head needle from the Thorsberger Moor . In: Offa, reports and communications on prehistory, early history and medieval archeology . tape 53 , 1996, pp. 227-235 .
  8. ↑ Sabine Eisenbeiß: Reports on bog bodies from Lower Saxony in the estate of Alfred Dieck . Archaeological Institute, Hamburg 1992 (Master's thesis).
  9. ^ Katharina von Haugwitz: The bog bodies of Schleswig-Holstein. Documentation and interpretation . Archaeological Institute, Hamburg 1993, p. 6, 71-72 (master's thesis).
  10. ^ Wijnand van der Sanden : Men en moeras: veenlijken in Nederland van de bronstijd tot en met de Romeinse tijd . In: Archeologische monografieën van het Drents Museum . No. 1 . Drents Museum, Assen 1990, ISBN 90-70884-31-3 (Dutch).
  11. ^ Wijnand van der Sanden : Alfred Dieck and the Dutch bog bodies: some critical marginal notes . In: Lower Saxony Regional Association for Prehistory (ed.): The customer NF . No. 44 , 1993, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 127-139 .
  12. ^ Wijnand van der Sanden : Mummies from the moor. The prehistoric and protohistoric bog bodies from northwestern Europe . Batavian Lion International, Amsterdam 1996, ISBN 90-6707-416-0 , pp. 52–54 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
  13. ^ Wijnand van der Sanden : C14 dating of bog bodies from Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 46 , 1995, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 140-141 .
  14. ↑ Elke Heege: Bibliography of the moor archaeologist Dr. Alfred Dieck: 1906 to 1989: Honorary member of the DGMT . In: Telma . tape 21 , 1991, ISSN  0340-4927 , pp. 321-338 .
personal data
SURNAME Dieck, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Schönebeck
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1989
Place of death Bremen