Großgartacher culture
The Großgartacher culture is an archaeological culture in the Middle Neolithic in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In the Hinkelstein-Großgartach-Rössen cultural complex . It got its name from Alfred Schliz (1849–1915) after excavation work in Großgartach, today part of the municipality of Leingarten in the district of Heilbronn and was especially widespread in southwest Germany.
Research history
After his settlement excavation in Großgartach near Heilbronn, Alfred Schliz defined the term Großgartach culture in 1900 and said that it coincided with the Rössen culture. On the basis of his analysis of the style of the found ceramics, he later pleaded - like modern research - for a Middle Neolithic cultural complex Hinkelstein-Großgartach-Rössen. Katharina Mauser-Goller (1969) and W. Meier-Arendt (1975) recognized the great stylistic similarity between Großgartach and the Hinkelstein group, which was partly at the same time as the band ceramics . In the 1970s, extensive excavations between Cologne and Aachen uncovered large settlements, which significantly expanded the knowledge about settlement and economic methods. (Lüning 1982, Dohrn 1983). A finer temporal breakdown of the Großgartacher culture was worked out in 1980 by Marion Lichardus-Itten at the grave fields of Lingolsheim and Erstein in Alsace.
chronology
The band ceramics at the beginning of the Neolithic was followed in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. The Middle Neolithic cultural complex with the Hinkelstein group from approx. 5000 to approx. 4900 BC BC, the Großgartacher culture from approx. 4900 to approx. 4700 BC. And the Rössen culture , then until about 4600/4550 BC. Chr. (Eisenhauer 2003).
distribution
The Großgartacher culture was widespread, not only in southwest Germany, but also in the Ruhr area and Rhineland, in Lower and Central Franconia, the Nördlinger Ries and from Alsace to the Erfurt area.
Ceramics
The typical Großgartacher decorative technique is the double stitch, which is lined up with ribbons and garlands as a filling motif to decorate the empty space. It was pressed into the damp clay by leg tools (e.g. pig teeth ). By inserting a white mass of clay and lime in the depressions of the decoration, it stands out clearly from the surface of the vessel, which has been darkened by the addition of charcoal. All vessels have a more or less convex spherical bottom, a distinct belly kink and a slightly outwardly drawn upper edge. The spherical floors required support from base rings. Well-bulged vessels have four handles or lugs on the edge of the belly. A peculiarity of the Großgartacher style is the fir branch-like bow garland with decorative bows below the belly edge. Another key form is the conical cup with a high base.
House and settlement
The large houses in the Middle Neolithic with a length of up to 65 m are still in the tradition of the ceramic long houses . But they are no longer rectangular, but have slightly curved longitudinal walls and narrow sides of different lengths. The floor plan is ship-shaped. The roof made of light materials (e.g. straw) is presumably inclined between 40 and 50 degrees. In order to maintain this angle at all points, the roof lowers when the floor plan is narrowed. At the narrowest point with the entrance in the northwest one suspects a kind of hipped roof , on the southeast side a gable. The interior has four aisles, divided by transverse bays with three posts each. The walls consist of a wattle wall coated with clay between wall posts, the traces of which are still visible in the ground today. Even at the time of the Großgartach culture there were communally organized settlements: In Bad Friedrichshall-Kochendorf in the Heilbronn district, for example, the ship-shaped houses are clearly oriented towards the double palisade ring surrounding the settlement .
Burial grounds
In the grave fields of the Großgartacher culture in Alsace, the dead were laid in a stretched supine position with the head in the northwest and the feet in the southeast in the grave (Lichardus-Itten 1980). In 1988/89 a cemetery was excavated in Trebur in the Groß-Gerau district with a total of 127 burials of the Hinkelstein and Großgartach cultures. Two menhir cremation graves were surprising, because so far only body burials were known. The difference in the funeral rites of two successive cultures was greater than expected. The graves refer to each other in a kind of row grave structure. The orientation SE-NW of the dead in the stretched supine position was the same for both cultures. Half of the deceased from the Großgartach culture, like those of the Hinkelstein group, had their heads in the SE, the other half, however, the other way around. The change in style between the two cultures did not take place at the cultural border of 4700 BC. BC, but after a longer temporal overlap from around 4600 BC. Within the same group, innovations are adapted at different speeds. Stylistic similarity does not necessarily mean temporary simultaneity.
In addition to vessels and tools, rich jewelry made of limestone beads, pierced boar tooth lamellae, pierced canines of predators, mussels and fossil snails were found. Sometimes the dead also received meat as food for the journey to the afterlife. The Großgartach graves are less richly endowed and less carefully deepened than those of the Hinkelstein group.
literature
- Eric Biermann with contributions by Jürgen Richter and Bernhard Weninger: Großgartach and Oberlauterbach. Interregional relations in the South German Middle Neolithic. Jürgen Richter in collaboration with the German Society for Prehistory and Early History eV (Ed.), Habelt, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-7749-2837-1 .
- Ernst Probst : Germany in the Stone Age. Hunters, fishermen and farmers between the North Sea coast and the Alps. Bertelsmann, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-570-02669-8 , pp. 285-286.
- Ludwig Lidl: The Stone Age village of Großgartach . In: Heimatverein Leingarten (ed.): Heimatbuch Leingarten. Leingarten 1982, pp. 21-28.
- Marion Lichardus-Itten : The grave fields of the Großgartacher group in Alsace. (= Saarbrücker contributions to antiquity. Volume 25). Habelt, Bonn 1980, ISBN 3-7749-1423-0 .
- Katharina Mauser-Goller: The Rössen culture in its southwestern distribution area . In: Hermann Schwabedissen (Hrsg.): The beginnings of the Neolithic from the Orient to Northern Europe. Volume 5a: Jens Lüning : Western Central Europe. (= Foundation row: A. Volume 3). Böhlau, Cologne 1972, ISBN 3-412-96272-4 , pp. 231-269.
- Alfred Schliz : The Stone Age village of Großgartach. Its culture and the later prehistoric settlement of the area. Enke, Stuttgart 1901.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Barbara Dammers: Hinkelstein-Großgartach-Rössen. To the Middle Neolithic in Rheinhessen . Sabine Reckhoff, Wolf-Rüdiger Teegen (eds.): Leipziger online contributions to prehistoric and early historical archeology 5 , Leipzig 2003. [1] (PDF; 322 kB)