Great stone graves near Alt Sammit
The large stone graves at Alt Sammit were at least five megalithic graves from the Neolithic funnel beaker culture at Alt Sammit , a district of Krakow am See in the Rostock district ( Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ). All were destroyed in the 19th century. Three graves were examined in 1860 and 1883. The finds made in the process are now in the collection of the Archaeological State Museum Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Schwerin .
location
The exact location of the graves is not known. It is only given generally as “on the field”. The next preserved grave is the large stone grave Luisenhof, about 3–4 km to the northwest .
Research history
Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch first mentioned five or six large stone graves and several burial mounds in the area of Alt Sammit in 1847. When the demolition of a grave began in 1860, Lisch carried out an archaeological investigation on this and another grave on July 9 and 10 of this year. A third grave was destroyed in 1883. An investigation could no longer take place, but its original appearance could be reconstructed through questioning.
description
Grave 1
The grave was built on sandy soil and had a north-south oriented burial chamber , which can be addressed as a large dolmen . The chamber was 18 feet (about 5.4 m) long by 8 feet (about 2.4 m) wide. It consisted of four wall stones each on the long sides, one end stone each on the narrow sides and four cap stones. The wall stones averaged 6 feet (about 1.8 m) high. The capstones were 1.8–2.4 m long, 1.5–1.8 m wide and 0.9–1.2 m thick. Their weight was estimated at 3–5 tons. A pile of mounds could not be detected, only a light, approximately 0.6 m high pile of small stones on the outside of the wall stones. The spaces between the wall stones were filled with dry stone masonry made of small stone slabs, which was about 60 cm high. The chamber floor consisted of a clay plaster on which a layer of white-annealed flint splinters was applied. The chamber was divided into several quarters by rows of vertical slabs made of red sandstone and red granite . Two quarters lay directly under the two southern capstones parallel to them. In the direction of the chamber and at right angles to the two northern capstones, an elongated quarter ran under these in the middle of the chamber, which had two smaller ancillary quarters on both sides. Another quarter lay between the northernmost capstone and the outwardly offset capstone.
Three flint axes were found in the southernmost quarter . In the next quarter lay the skeleton of an adult, of which only parts of the back skull were preserved. Two fragments of a ceramic vessel were discovered here as additions. Of the three quarters that followed, the central and western quarters were empty. The eastern quarters contained another flint ax and a flint dagger or lance tip. Another ax was found in the excavation, the original place of which could no longer be determined. In the northernmost quarter, a sitting human skeleton facing east was found on the west wall. The skull, arm bones and ribs were still preserved. The leg bones were almost completely gone. No additions were found. Four axes from the finds are still preserved today.
Grave 2
Grave 2 was largely identical in orientation, size and construction to grave 1, but it was not a dolmen, but a passage grave of the Holstein Chamber subtype . The chamber consisted of four wall stones each on the long sides, one end stone each on the narrow sides and originally probably four cap stones. The southern capstone was already missing at the time of the investigation. The northern capstone was very large and very narrow at the eastern end. This end had apparently already slipped in prehistoric times. The grave had been makeshift repaired by placing another capstone on the northeast wall stone and the half-sunken capstone. The chamber was divided into quarters by upright stone slabs. The scheme was similar to that of grave 1: There was a quarter under each of the two southern capstones, followed by three narrow quarters along the direction of the chamber and, in turn, a transverse quarter in the north. In the middle of the chamber, a 0.3 m high sandy backfill layer was found. Between the first and second wall stone on the eastern long side, seen from the south, a corridor was set up at right angles, which consisted of three pairs of wall stones. The corridor was about three feet wide and three feet high. Cap stones were not found.
The two southern quarters were empty. As with grave 1, the western and middle quarters of the following quarters were empty at ground level. In the eastern quarter, the remains of the leg bones of a human skeleton were discovered at ground level, which was probably originally in a sitting position. Beside it lay some stones, which were covered by a greasy black mass. Two hatchets and a dagger or a lance tip made of flint were found among additions. Above the sandy backfill were two narrow chisels made of flint, a roughly hewn chisel block (according to Ingeburg Nilius a fire hammer ), the shards of a spherical amphora and two undecorated vessels as well as a bean-shaped quartz stone , which could have been both an artifact and a natural product . A leg bone of a west-east oriented skeleton was discovered in the northern quarter. A sandstone slab, which had probably served as a grindstone, and a round stone made of granite, perhaps a rubstone, lay here as accessories. Two axes, the point (dagger or lance), two narrow chisels and the fire hammer are still preserved from the finds.
Grave 3
Grave 3 had a round mound made of clay with a diameter of 5 m. Completely enclosed by the hill, under a layer of stone, lay a small burial chamber with a length of 1.25 m and a width of 0.6 m. The orientation was not determined. The chamber was built from stone slabs, a capstone was not mentioned. Ewald Schuldt classified the grave as an ancient dolmen .
When the grave was destroyed, the fragments of a ceramic vessel and six flint tools were found. The shards remained on site and have not been preserved. Four flint tools came into private hands and are now lost. The other two devices are in the collection of the State Museum. It is a thick-necked cross hatchet and a narrow chisel.
More graves
No further information is available about the other graves. They are only generally described as above-ground chambers.
literature
- Barrow in the Gnoien area. In: Yearbook of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 8, 1843, p. 33 ( online ).
- Hans-Jürgen Beier : The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings as well as the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest. Contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe 1. Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, pp. 16–17.
- Robert Beltz : The Stone Age sites in Meklenburg. In: Yearbook of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 64, 1899, pp. 81, 106 ( online ).
- Robert Beltz: megalithic grave of Alt-Sammit. In: Yearbook of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 64, 1899, p. 125 ( online ).
- Robert Beltz: The prehistoric antiquities of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Complete list of the finds preserved in the Grand Ducal Museum in Schwerin. Text tape. Reimer, Berlin 1910, pp. 110-111 ( online ).
- Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch : Cone graves from Alt-Sammit. In: Yearbook of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 12, 1847, p. 407, footnote ( online ).
- Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch: megalithic graves from old Sammit. In: Yearbook of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 26, 1861, pp. 115-127 ( online ).
- Ingeburg Nilius : The Neolithic in Mecklenburg at the time and with special consideration of the funnel cup culture (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of the districts of Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg. Volume 5). Museum of Prehistory and Early History, Schwerin 1971, p. 93.
- Friedrich Schlie : The art and history monuments of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Volume 4. Schwerin 1901, p. 416 ( online ).
- Ewald Schuldt : The Mecklenburg megalithic graves. Research on their architecture and function. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1972, p. 126.
- Ernst Sprockhoff : The Nordic megalithic culture (= manual of the prehistory of Germany. Volume 3). de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1938, p. 146.
- Ernst Sprockhoff: Atlas of the megalithic tombs of Germany. Part 2: Mecklenburg - Brandenburg - Pomerania. Rudolf-Habelt Verlag, Bonn 1967, p. 26.
