Jastorf culture

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Jastorf culture
Age : pre-Roman Iron Age
Absolutely : approx. 600 BC Until the turn of the ages

expansion
Archeological cultures in Northern and Central Europe at the late pre-Roman Iron Age.png
Legend:
  • Jastorf culture
  • Early Nordic Iron Age
  • Harpstedt-Nienburger Group
  • Celtic groups
  • Przeworsk culture
  • Home urn culture
  • East Baltic forest zone cultures
  • West Baltic barrow culture
  • Zarubincy culture
  • Estonian group
  • Guben group (influenced by the Przeworsk culture)
  • Oxhöft culture
  • Getic and Thracian groups
  • Poieneşti-Lukaševka culture (influenced by the Przeworsk and Jastorf cultures )
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    The Jastorf culture is a north-central European archaeological cultural stage and cultural group from around 600 BC. Until the turn of the times (pre-Roman Iron Age ), which is regarded as the predecessor culture of the Elbe Germans . This culture was named by the prehistorian Gustav Schwantes after the urn burial ground in Jastorf near Jastorf ( Uelzen district ) in Lower Saxony . The settlement area of ​​the Jastorf Group extends from the western Altmark in the east, to the Elbe tributary Seeve in the Harburg district and from the Aller in the south, to Ostholstein and West Mecklenburg in the north. The settlement area of ​​the Nienburger Group lies south of the Aller-Weser line and extends to the low mountain range. It covers parts of the Oldenburger Land and borders in the east on the settlement area of ​​the Elbe-Saale-Gruppe. The region west of the Seeve as far as the North Sea belonged to a group of forms whose settlement focus is assumed to be in West Holstein. Southern Lower Saxony was at times subject to stronger influences from the Celtic Hessian mountainous region and the Thuringian region. However, there were no fixed boundaries between the groups.

    The Nienburger Group occupies a special position within the Jastorf culture. Iron technology will have been conveyed to the north German plains via their area, especially across the Weser to the groups of the Hallstatt culture. This assumption is supported by the fact that numerous objects were found in the area around the central Weser that can be assigned to the Hallstatt culture.

    Culture group

    The previously suspected immigration from Denmark and southern Sweden (Scandinavia) is outdated. More likely - not least because of the names of the waters ( hydronymics ) - is an origin between the Harz and Eider. There is evidence of a strong cultural exchange with the Celtic La Tène culture . Around 500 BC The culture reached today's Thuringia, the Lower Rhine and Lower Silesia.

    The Jastorf culture and its temporal counterpart in the preceding Nordic Bronze Age are viewed as Germanic or pre-Germanic cultures. The Nordic Bronze Age forms an independent culture during the simultaneous existence of the northern urn field culture , which emerged from the central urn field culture. The northern Urnfield culture or tumuli culture ( tumulus -Culture) was the vorgermanische culture of the late Bronze Age.

    The chronological framework and the temporal parallelization with the simultaneous southern and central German cultures is as follows:

    • 600 - 500 BC Chr. Jastorf A corresponds to Hallstatt D.
    • 500 - 400 BC Jastorf B corresponds to Latène A.
    • 400-350 BC Jastorf C corresponds to Latène B
    • 350-120 BC Chr. Ripdorf corresponds to Latène C
    • 120 - 0 BC Chr. Seedorf corresponds to Latène D

    So far, mainly burials with barrows , shallow graves and campfire graves have been found . Grave goods were rare and then rather poor, and there were no weapons.

    Research regards the Jastorf culture as the basis of the Germanic tribes that emerged from it and of the Germanic language and cultural community. The finds already show a certain differentiation, which manifests itself in clothing, jewelry and ceramics.

    discovery

    In the summer of 1897, 16-year-old Gustav Schwantes discovered an untouched urn grave field in the Heitbracker Heide near Jastorfer Moor, which he dug up with his brother and two friends. He brought the 42 urns found with their contents made of iron and bronze parts to the Natural History Museum in Hamburg, where they were assigned to the La Tène period . Schwantes noticed that the additions to his urns differed considerably from the finds in the museum. Other finds discovered by Schwantes in autumn 1897 and the following years on the urn grave field of Jastorf on a sand field north of Jastorf an der Ilmenau also showed these deviations. 160 graves with urns were found there over the course of a few years. Due to the differences, the theory that had been valid up until then was shaken, that iron only came to Northern Europe through the Celtic Latène civilization. Schwantes found that the Jastorf culture had already begun before the Latène period, which the prehistorian Carl Schuchhardt recognized as a scientific achievement in 1935. Schwantes also examined other urn grave fields in northeastern Lower Saxony. The extensive finds made it possible for him to divide the Jastorf culture into three stages (Jastorf A, Jastorf B, Jastorf C).

    literature

    • Jochen Brandt: Jastorf and Latène. Cultural exchange and its effects on socio-political developments in the pre-Roman Iron Age (= International Archeology. Vol. 66). Leidorf, Rahden 2001, ISBN 3-89646-338-1 (also: Kiel, Universität, Dissertation, 2000).
    • Ernst Andreas Friedrich : A sand field near Jastorf in: If stones could talk. From the history of Lower Saxony. Volume 2. Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1992, ISBN 3-7842-0479-1 , pp. 21-23.
    • Hans-Jürgen Hässler (Ed.): Prehistory and early history in Lower Saxony p. 179
    • Wiebke Künnemann: Jastorf - history and content of an archaeological concept of culture. In: The customer. NF Vol. 46, 1995, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 61-122.
    • Jes Martens: Jastorf and Jutland In: Brandt, J. & Rauchfuss, B. (red.): The Jastorf concept and the pre-Roman Iron Age in northern Central Europe. 2014, ISBN 978-3-931429-23-2 , pp. 245-266. ( Online , english)
    • Rosemarie Müller:  Jastorf culture. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 16, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, ISBN 3-11-016782-4 , pp. 43-55.
    • Herwig Wolfram : Die Germanen (= Beck'sche series 2004 CH Beck Wissen ). 4th edition. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44904-2 .

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ^ Heinrich Beck , Heiko Steuer , Dieter Timpe (ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Teutons, Germania, Germanic antiquity. = The Teutons. Study edition, 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1998, ISBN 3-11-016383-7 , p. 145, hatching in the original replaced by colors.
    2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Hässler: Prehistory and early history in Lower Saxony p. 179
    3. ↑ Wolfram: The Germanic peoples. 4th edition. 1999.