Goldbeck burial ground

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Location of Beckdorf

The cemetery of Goldbeck is located in Beckdorf in the Stade district in the southern part of the Harsefelder Geest , in Lower Saxony . There is a large burial ground on the Geesthöhe between Goldbeck and Rahmstorf . In 1926 the district was able to secure around half of the previously existing monuments by purchasing 7.5 hectares of land with 70 barrows . The old heathland was preserved on the district's own area . It also includes an old Hochackersystem, the Wölbacker widths of between 8 and 12 m. The burial ground was transformed into a burial mound by taking care of the vegetation and repairing the burial mounds and is signposted from the road between Goldbeck and Rahmstorf with the note “Prehistoric burial mounds”.

Between the larger burial mounds there are groups of smaller mounds. While the large hills, in which stone boxes can be located, belong to the Older Bronze Age , the smaller ones date from the Younger Bronze Age or the Older Iron Age . This applies not only to the 70 preserved barrows in the protected area, but also to the barrow field that once stretched west to Goldbeck and beyond. Most of the monuments here were destroyed by agricultural cultivation and extensive soil excavation. At the beginning of the landscaping in 1891, a stone box made of flat stones was discovered in a hill 2.2 m high and 24.0 m in diameter. It has a clear width of 1.9 × 0.8 m, a clear height of 0.65 m and was protected with a capstone 2.4 m long and 1.0 m wide. Finds and findings were scanty. A rapidly expanding gravel pit was opened to the west of the hill with the stone box at the beginning of the 1960s. On the edge of the pit there were seven barrows, some of them already plowed over in the arable land, others still in bush and heather. All the monuments had already been "head stabbed" earlier. Another, once large burial mound was a bit removed from this group as a torso in the farmland.

Most of the mounds contained a so-called “underground grave ” with additions of the individual grave culture as a primary burial in their middle . The dead lay on their side and were buried in pits in a crouched position. They had been given stone utensils and clay pots. The shape and decoration of the "curly cups" reveal different typological stages of development. Otherwise they gave very well-made battle axes and daggers, flint axes and blades. In two cases the dead lay in a wooden chamber built on the natural ground. A hill contained three burials in a large house of the dead, separated by wooden walls. The dead had discovered ceramics, stone utensils and, in one case, an amber pearl. The other graves with a central sub-grave contained further central burials. The sequence of burials in Hill I is given as an example.

  • The primary burial was in an underground grave that was 1.20 m deep in the natural ground. A large curved beaker, a double blade scraper made of flint and a large flint ax were given as gifts. Wood remains indicate that the pit was covered with wooden planks.
  • Above the stool burial was a body burial in the supine position. The grave, which was only 0.4 m deep in the natural ground, was rectangular with a size of 3.0 × 1.0 m and was surrounded by eight large field stones in a loose bond and covered with heather or grass . On the bottom of the grave, some unidentifiable bone remnants were seen in dark discoloration. On the western narrow side was the blade of a bronze dagger with four rivets. She was still residues of the wood sheath surrounding it. The handle of the bronze dagger was made of deer antlers. The dagger clearly dates the burial to Period I of the Early Bronze Age according to Montelius .
  • Above this burial, a little to the side, followed a corpse cremation with remains of urns from the end of the Younger Bronze Age.

It becomes clear that within the grave field of Goldbeck not only large and small mounds originate from different times, but that also within the grave mounds the course of different cultural stages becomes visible through changes in burial customs and the grave inventory.

literature

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 24 ′ 8 "  N , 9 ° 38 ′ 53"  E