Derenburg burial ground

On the cemetery of Derenburg , named after the district Stadt Derenburg of the city of Blankenburg in the Harz district , between 5500 and 5000 BC were buried. In 20 generations, 40 dead of the band ceramic culture were buried. Derenburg is one of the oldest burial grounds in Saxony-Anhalt . The spondylus jewelry from the burial ground is so far unique north of the Harz Mountains and, as the limitation to only three burials shows, it is rare.

The grave finds

A spondylus valve in a woman's grave served as a belt ornament or attachment. Repairs to artifacts indicate careful use. One arm ring showed patches at the break. In the mussel valves, old holes were closed with plugs made of mussel material and glued with birch pitch .

The entire spectrum of spondylus processing was found in a women's grave away from the burial ground: flaps, arm rings and pearls. The other additions were also abnormal. A horse tooth was pierced again after the first hole had broken out. The shape and style of the ceramic showed an idiosyncratic character. In the grave pit there was a flat red chalk and a rubbing stone with a rubbing plate with which the color mineral was ground.

A bangle and pearls carved out of shell flaps were found in a man's grave. Shell jewelry from men's graves is not uncommon. According to current knowledge, mussel flaps come from women's and arm rings from men's graves, while pearls are found in graves of both sexes.

The context

Menhir of Derenburg

In the cemetery of the Elbe-Saale area, shell jewelry made from the case of a thick-shelled Lazarus rattle ( Spondylus gaederopus ) appears in the Neolithic. The range of the mussel is in the southern Mediterranean, in the Black Sea and in the Aegean Sea . Spondylus jewelry is not an everyday grave gift , on average it is found in about every tenth grave. The massive shells were made into pendants, bracelets , pearls or buckles. The arm rings were worn on the upper arms and were so tight that they could not be slipped off the elbows. Obviously, they were applied to the porters in their youth. Time seems to have little effect on this material. In the backlight, the pieces of jewelry shimmer with a milky, salmon-colored sheen. Because of this color, the rarity and the costly procurement of the raw material, the spondylus is also called the "gold of the Stone Age".

literature

• Ulrich Müller & Veit Dresely: The gold of the Stone Age. In: Harald Meller (ed.): Beauty, Power and Death. 120 finds from 120 years of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Accompanying volume for the special exhibition from December 11, 2001 to April 28, 2002 in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle / State Office for Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, State Museum of Prehistory. State Office for Archeology, Halle 2001, ISBN 3-910010-64-4 , pp. 280–281.
• Carolin Schwarz: Paleodemographic and paleopathological studies on linear ceramic burials from Derenburg, Werningerode district, Saxony-Anhalt. Diploma thesis, University of Mainz, Institute for Anthropology Mainz (2008)
• Penny Bickle, Alasdair Whittle: The First Farmers of Central Europe: Diversity in LBK Lifeways. Cardiff Studies in Archeology, Oxbow Books, Oxford 2013, ISBN 1-8421-7914-4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Haak: Population genetics of the first farmers in Central Europe. An aDNA study on Neolithic skeletal material. Dissertation, University of Mainz, 2006, p. 66 f. ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Finds that could be assigned to the stitch band ceramists were rarer.
3. ↑ Barbara Fritsch, Erich Claßen, Ulrich Müller, Veit Dresely: The linear ceramic grave fields of Derenburg "Meerenstieg II" and Halberstadt "Sonntagsfeld", district of Harz. In Festschrift for Central German Prehistory. Vol. 92/2008 (2011), pp. 25-229

Coordinates: 51 ° 52 ′ 20.1 ″  N , 10 ° 54 ′ 29 ″  E