Wooden chamber graves of the individual grave culture
The wooden chamber graves of the single grave culture ( Danish træbyggede gravkiste ) occurred at the Limfjord , especially in Himmerland, as an exception. In the middle of the 3rd millennium a variety of grave forms developed there. Most of the time, wooden chamber graves were used for recurring burials and the large grave boxes with access, the so-called Bøstrup boxes . Wooden chamber graves are not a one-off phenomenon. They occur in different cultures from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages ( Soest burial ground ).
There are about two dozen wooden chambers from this period that have been discovered in Denmark. Their floor plan corresponds to that of the stone chambers at the same time. In contrast to them, however, wooden chambers were only used for a few decades. Outside of North Jutland there are a few wooden chambers without access. They are intended for single use. One such grave was examined in Gårslev by Vejle Fjord in 1987 . It was a well-preserved wooden chamber with two burials. The 2.5 m long chamber had a rectangular floor plan. The walls consisted of vertical boards and four corner posts. The planks were 6 to 7 cm thick and 30 to 40 cm wide. The floor and ceiling were also made of wide planks. There were no bones found in the chamber, but two sets of grave goods indicate that one man had lain in the center of the tomb with his head facing south and another man on the west side of the chamber. The two must have been buried at the same time, as there are no entrances to the chamber. How long it took before the chamber was covered by a hill is unclear. To the east of the hill was a small square house that had an opening of 40 cm to the east. It was rectangular and measured 1.3 × 1.0 m. The walls, made of vertical boards, stood in a foundation trench . It was probably used for ceremonies related to burials.
The archaeological excavations repeatedly show new forms of wooden chamber graves from the individual burial time. A previously unknown shape was excavated in Hjordkær near Åbenrå in 1980 . The grave was a circular grave, surrounded by eight powerful post holes and a building measuring 6.0 × 5.0 m. The massive foundations and dimensions show that a tower-like building may have stood over the grave that shaped the area. The post holes in Gantrup near Horsens and Stendis near Holstebro were more modest . They probably come from tent-shaped houses of the dead made of round rafters.
There were special forms of pottery that were used almost exclusively in the graves. The area was intermediate between those who performed almost exclusively single burials under hills, and eastern Denmark, where subsequent burials in megalithic structures were common. A development that anticipates the position of the Limfjord region at the end of the era when it became the place where metal culture was established in Denmark.
literature
- PV Glob : prehistoric monuments of Denmark. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1968.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The wooden chamber grave culture or bar grave culture is a Bronze Age cultural group in southern Russia, named after their type of burial in pits vaulted by hills with fixtures made of beams or floorboards in which the dead were buried in a crouched position .