Linear ceramic grave fields in Bavaria
The four investigated Linear Pottery cemeteries in Bavaria , in Aiterhofen -Ödmühle, Dillingen-Steinheim , Mangolding and Sengkofen is its geomorphological location in common. The elevations used protrude from the flat environment and are located near a watercourse .
description
With the exception of Steinheim, several settlements are known from the vicinity of the burial grounds. It is impossible to assign a certain settlement to a burial ground of the Bandkeramischen Kultur (LBK), so that one should consider declaring the burial fields as burial places of several settlements.
Aiterhofen is the only burial ground that has been almost completely excavated. 159 body graves with 176 individuals and 69 cremation graves with the remains of 79 individuals are available from the burial ground . Due to the fragmentary preservation, body graves / individuals were found in Mangolding 13/14, Sengkofen 29/32 and Steinheim 27/27. Cremation graves are missing from these three grave fields. The Aiterhofen burial ground was to be divided into occupancy zones. There were five zones, some of which could still be divided into groups of graves. The zones and groups were delimited by free areas.
The burial customs showed a uniform picture for the body and cremation graves. Most of the rounded, rectangular to oval pits in the body burials were closely related to the body dimensions of the dead. Some pits were more spacious. The original grave depths cannot be reconstructed, with the discovery depths varying between 0.1 and 1.4 m. An original digging depth of 0.50 m - 0.80 m can be assumed for Aiterhofen.
Alignment
The main exposure of the dead was to the east (82%). In addition to antipodal orientations (9.3%), other orientations occurred.
When the patient was crouched on the left (72.2%), the line of sight was mostly in a southerly direction (68.3%). Furthermore, the right-sided stool (9.1%), the stool in the supine position (6.9%; absent in Mangolding), the stool in the prone position (1.3%; - it is absent in Steinheim and Mangolding), as well as the extended supine position (4.9%; missing in Sengkofen and Mangolding). In contrast, the latter made up a high proportion in Steinheim with 32%.
A gender-specific orientation or body position could not be determined. In Steinheim, however, the right-hand stool position is reserved for men (but there are also men lying on the left-hand side). It is noticeable that abnormal burials often occupy a peripheral location in the grave field or in the grave groups (Aiterhofen). This applies in particular to double burials, which are available as five body and ten cremation graves from Aiterhofen and two graves from Sengkofen. These were mostly burials of men or women with children, rarely children’s double graves. Adults were never buried together.
Additional human skeletal remains come from 11 body graves from Aiterhofen and one each from Mangolding and Sengkofen. Usually the bones belonging to the skull or the extremities were burned. It was not possible to clarify whether the findings are evidence of ritual acts or the remains of destroyed and secondarily relocated cremation graves.
Manipulations
In the context of the burial, the dead were manipulated in some cases, as shown by teeth removed post-mortem from five body burials in Aiterhofen, which were later deposited on or under the skull. The skeletal structure was almost completely destroyed at grave Ai 140. The tomb was opened some time after the burial, with the skeleton discarded.
Cenotaphs
The pits on the burial grounds of Aiterhofen (36) and Sengkofen (10), which are similar in size, orientation, shape and backfill to the body graves, can hardly be interpreted. It is likely to be cenotaphs or grave pits that were cleared out as part of a multi-stage burial rite (as evidenced in Herxheim ).
Incendiary graves
The cremation graves are exclusively embankment graves . In the subgrade they show round to oval contours, the diameter of which varies between 0.35 and 0.9 m. Since their depth of discovery corresponds to that of the body graves under the same preservation conditions, the archaeologically recorded extent of the cremation should coincide with the original distribution on the grave field. However, while few cremation graves are made of linear ceramic , others date to the Middle Neolithic , so that the time of most cremation burials (due to the lack of grave goods and atypical material) cannot be reliably assessed.
Gender share
The anthropological analysis showed a dominance of men for all grave fields, which is even extreme in Sengkofen (73.3%) and Steinheim (74%). If one does not want to attribute this to the poor preservation conditions , one must assume different burial customs for men and women. However, the surplus of men in the body graves of Aiterhofen is low (54.4%), and in the cremation graves the gender ratio is even balanced. For most children, but especially for infants and toddlers, burial rules that cannot be proven archaeologically apply. They are either not represented at all (Mangolding and Steinheim) or only in small numbers on the burial grounds. The high proportion of children among the cremated burials in Aiterhofen is an exception (32.8%), although here too there are no infants and small children are underrepresented.
Age determination
The overwhelming number of deaths reached adulthood, with most women dying in their third decade and the majority of men in their fourth decade. The anthropological gender diagnosis could be put into perspective by a combined anthropological-archaeological determination. Gender-specific additions formed the basis. They include:
- a) for male individuals: fire cutlery , flint blades , flint or bone arrowheads, antler gag, flat chopping, meat additions, Fuchs jaw bone rods Rötelstreuung, shoe last wedges , bracelets made from shells of the sting oyster ( spondylus ) and V-shaped machined Spondylusschalen
- b) for female individuals: round spondylus valves, which were made into jewelry because of their mother-of-pearl layer
With the method, numerous anthropologically indeterminate individuals (including some children and young people) could be assigned to a gender, so that the number of gendered individuals in three grave fields (except Steinheim) increased considerably.
The studies also showed that the proportion of male individuals in all seats was significantly higher than that of females. This cannot be explained with the limited archaeological gender diagnosis, but rather as a cultural-historical constellation. In addition to children, women are only represented to a lesser extent on the Bavarian burial grounds of the LBK. For both groups different burial rules, which cannot be proven archaeologically, are likely to have applied. According to this, we do not find a representative cross-section through a ceramic population, but a selected group of people whose privilege represents burial in grave fields.
Additions
The share of burials with accompanying graves is between 48 and 68% in the burial fields. Men always have more gifts than women. The quality of the equipment of the male surpasses that of the female. This also applies to the cremation graves , which are poorly equipped compared to the body graves.
The additions were deposited on the grave floor, mostly in the area of the upper body (often on the head). Some objects can be identified as part of the costume based on their location (antler gag and spondylus flaps as belt buckles; spondylus arm rings, spondylus and stone beads, as well as dentures and snail shells, i.e. chains or hoods). The trim of the corpse may speak for a lying in state before burial. In some cases the utensils were so close together that their placement in a container made of organic material and thus a functional connection between the artifacts (e.g. fire utensils ) can be identified.
The objects that were also laid down in the area of the lower extremities were mainly arrowheads . As a bundle, they could indicate the addition of a quiver . Subdivided sets of arrows make the existence of a bow in the equipment material probable, so that equipment consisting of arrows , quiver and bow was probably to be grasped with the arrowheads .
Finds from the backfilling of the pit are a specialty. Most of it is shattered ceramics and only a few colored stones ( red chalk , graphite ), calcined bones etc.
literature
- Norbert Nieszery : Linear ceramic grave fields in Bavaria. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 1995, ISBN 3-924734-34-8 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Frank D. Davis: New ceramic graves from Mangolding, Ldkr. Regensburg-Süd. Erlangen, pp. 323-335
- ↑ are small, conical-röhrförmige calcareous the Scaphopods (scaphopods)