Great stone graves near Wallstawe

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The megalithic graves near Wallstawe were seven megalithic tombs from the Neolithic deep-engraving ceramic culture near Wallstawe in the Altmark district of Salzwedel , Saxony-Anhalt . All were destroyed in the 19th century.

location

The graves were near Wallstawe and were arranged in a north-south row. This continued in the area of ​​the Wötz desert near Leetze , where there are still eight other large stone graves today , a ninth has been destroyed. Perhaps all of these 16 graves were along a Neolithic path.

Research history

The facilities were first documented in the 1830s by Johann Friedrich Danneil . When the great stone graves of the Altmark were taken up again in the 1890s , Eduard Krause and Otto Schoetensack discovered that all the facilities had been completely removed in the meantime in the course of the separation .

description

Grave 1

The grave had a stone enclosure with a length of 10 m and a width of 3.8 m. Danneil found the surrounding stones all lying down, presumably they had overturned. The burial chamber had six capstones. Presumably it was a passage grave .

Grave 2

Grave 2 had a burial chamber of approximately round shape. It was 3.5 m long, 3.1 m wide and was covered with a single capstone. The grave should be addressed as a polygonal pole .

Grave 3

Grave 3 was right next to grave 2 and was largely identical to it. With a length of 3.5 m and a width of 3.1 m, it had the same dimensions. This complex also had only a single capstone and was therefore probably also a polygonal pole.

Grave 4

When Danneil was taken, grave 4 still had a completely preserved grave chamber. This had a length of 6 m and a width of 3.1 m. It should have been a large dolmen or a passage grave.

Grave 5

Grave 5 had a stone enclosure with a length of 31.4 m and a width of 7.8 m. The burial chamber had several capstones; Because of the dense vegetation, however, it could not be examined more closely by Danneil. Presumably it was a large dolmen or a passage grave.

Grave 6

Grave 6 had a stone enclosure with a length of 8.8 m and a width of 5.3 m. The burial chamber had only one capstone at its northern end. It is no longer possible to determine the type of grave.

Grave 7

Grave 7 had a stone enclosure. In the 1830s, an excavation was carried out on the complex, which included both the chamber and the mound.

Finds

During the investigation of grave 7, shards of a ceramic vessel were found. They were yellow-brown in color and decorated with simple lines.

In addition, a so-called Amazon ax was found near one of the large stone graves near Wallstawe , which is now in the Johann Friedrich Danneil Museum in Salzwedel . It consists of greenish-gray rock and is badly weathered. It has a length of 19.4 cm, a width of 6.0 cm and a thickness of 3.3 cm. The bore has a double-conical shape.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Beier : The megalithic, submegalithic and pseudomegalithic buildings and the menhirs between the Baltic Sea and the Thuringian Forest (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Volume 1). Wilkau-Haßlau 1991, pp. 58-59.
  • Hartmut Bock , Barbara Fritsch , Lothar Mittag : Great stone graves of the Altmark . State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt and State Museum for Prehistory, Halle (Saale) 2006, p. 91.
  • Johann Friedrich Danneil: General report on excavations in the area around Salzwedel. In: Karl Eduard Förstemann (ed.): New communications from the field of historical-antiquarian research. Volume 2. Halle 1836, p. 561 ( online ).
  • Johann Friedrich Danneil: Special evidence of the barrows in the Altmark. In: Sixth annual report of the Altmark Association for Patriotic History and Industry. 1843, no. 64–69 ( PDF; 5.5 MB ).
  • Eduard Krause, Otto Schoetensack: The megalithic graves (stone chamber graves) of Germany. I. Altmark. In: Journal of Ethnology. Volume 25, 1893, No. 99-105 ( PDF; 39.0 MB ).