Kilian cities massacre

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View from the edge of the Hohe Straße - over the former area of ​​the flat ceramic settlement built here on the hillside - to Kilianstädten. The grave and settlement were in the area to the left above the information board.

In the Kilianstädten massacre around 7000 years ago, towards the end of the linear ceramic culture , at least 26 Neolithic people were killed by blunt violence and arrow injuries. Their corpses were carelessly deposited in a mass grave in the area of ​​the Kilianstädten district of today's Schöneck municipality in the Main-Kinzig district of Hesse .

Discovery of the massacre

In the course of earthworks during the construction of the bypass (L 3008) for the Kilianstädten district of the municipality of Schöneck in the Main-Kinzig district , the workers came across bones not far from the Neuer Weg road in 2006 , which were recovered together with stone tools , ceramic shards and animal bones for the purpose Research was handed over to the University of Mainz . The radiocarbon ( 14 C method) of four bone revealed an age 5207-4849 years BC ( cal BC ), the found ceramic refers to the period around 5000 BC

Investigation of the finds

Adze : Reconstruction of a stock design of shoe lasts wedge and wooden handle

The bones were in a V-shaped, 30 to 100 centimeters wide and 7.50 meter long pit (position) ; in its place is today the abutment of a bridge over the L 3008 on the built-up side of Kilianstädten. The pit was probably part of a longer, two- hectare system of ditches , which can be interpreted as a visible sign of territorial claims. In the immediate vicinity, indications of at least 18 longhouses gradually built by the linear ceramicists had already been found. Since it was an emergency excavation because of the construction work that had already started , only the most important archaeological findings were documented. The professional examination of the finds proved to be difficult because the bones were brittle and partially disintegrated. Nevertheless, it was possible to reconstruct the number of skeletons discovered, their gender and age as well as the causes of death: 13 adults died (including two over 40 years old), one adolescent between the ages of 16 and 21 (probably already at the time as an adult), two children aged six to eight years and 10 children under six years of age, including a baby about six months old. When compared with other burial sites, the researchers noticed the absence of children between the ages of nine and 15 years.

The sex of nine adult individuals could be reconstructed as male on the basis of the skull and lower jaw found ; the two over 40-year-olds were probably women. The sex of two of the dead could no longer be determined.

The indications of illnesses suffered a long time before death corresponded to what was customary at the time: indications of traces of inflammation in the area of ​​the ribs as a result of tuberculosis , indications of vitamin C deficiency and osteomyelitis , healed ribs, arm and leg fractures and one Healed, apparently surgically treated injury to a skull.

A first indication of the effects of violence that could have led to the death of the people was the discovery of two bony arrowheads in the immediate vicinity of bones during the cleaning work in the Mainz laboratory , which was interpreted to mean that they were in a body than this were deposited in the pit. The other accompanying finds were exclusively used and broken artifacts - obviously household waste - and not grave goods . The fact that the finds in the mass grave were victims of a massacre resulted from the discovered, numerous unhealed skull and lower jaw fractures and fresh fractures of the long arm bones, which correspond to the same old findings from the analysis of the Talheim massacre ( Baden-Württemberg ) and the Schletz massacre ( Lower Austria ). In addition, the corpses were carelessly deposited without the ritualized order typical of the time - in ordinary graves the dead were usually buried with bowed legs on their left side and often with grave goods.

Almost all skulls show severe injuries, such as those caused by the action of blunt force and that can be caused by so-called shoe last wedges (= adze blades) of the band ceramists. The holes in the skull plates are mainly located in the area of ​​the left half of the skull, which is typical for a wound by an attacker who is standing in front of his victim and hitting his right hand. In addition, numerous unhealed debris fractures were detected, particularly often in the lower area of ​​the legs and, secondly, in the arms.

Interpretation of what happened

Bridge over the bypass (Neuer Weg crosses L 3008) near Kilanstädten: To the right of the abutment on the other side , between the railing and the tarpaulin-covered straw store, was the pit in which the bones of the victims were found.

The type of injuries and the age distribution of those killed as well as the careless handling of the corpses is similar to the findings from Talheim and Schletz and means that in Kilianstädten the residents of an entire settlement were murdered or captured. The lack of younger women among the victims could point to women being raped; the absence of older children could mean that they were able to flee in the turmoil of the attack, while the younger children may not try, or that they were also captured as potential workers. Assuming the age distribution customary at the time, the attack was aimed at a community of 30 to 40 people in total.

What is unique about the mass grave of Kilianstädten is the finding that the bones of the lower legs were smashed. While the broken bones of the arms can still be interpreted as a result of fighting, this is considered unlikely with the broken legs; Instead, the Mainz researchers interpreted this use of violence as a symbolic act to prevent even those who were killed from fleeing.

The reasons for the violent attack by a probably neighboring group of linear ceramicists - the earliest rural society in Central Europe - are unclear. It is noticeable, however, that all three previously known massacres occurred in the late phase of the linear ceramic culture, when more massive fortifications around the settlements of that time can also be proven. In addition, the attacked community on the edge of the Wetterau was very close to a long-standing border between different trade routes for flint , which could indicate a profound gap between neighboring settlements.

According to researchers from the Roman-Germanic Central Museum , the events in the area of ​​what is now Kilianstädten took place in a time that was climatically favorable, which is why the population density had increased significantly, so that the fertile Wetterau was very densely populated. This means that “these early peasant societies tended to move in the direction of increased potential for conflict when times were good, so that essentially internal social and political processes were decisive for this. […] Conceivable as the immediate motives for the brutal violence between entire communities are conflicts within settlements and small regions, over territories and political supremacy or resources. "

What is astonishing, however, is that after the massacre the settlement continued to exist for about two generations. Then, however, the linear ceramic culture also ended in the Wetterau and was replaced by the subsequent Middle Neolithic cultures such as the Hinkelstein group .

Parallels

The mass grave of Kilianstädten was created in temporal and spatial proximity to the events in the area of ​​the Herxheim mine and to the aforementioned massacres in Talheim and Schletz.

literature

  • Christian Meyer, Christian Lohr, Detlef Gronenborn and Kurt W. Alt : The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe. In: PNAS . Volume 112, No. 36, 2015, pp. 11217–11222, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1504365112 , full text
  • Christian Meyer, Olaf Kürbis, Veit Dresely, Kurt W. Alt: Patterns of Collective Violence in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe. In: Andrea Dolfini, Rachel J. Crellin, Christian Horn and Marion Uckelmann: Prehistoric Warfare and Violence. Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. Springer International Publishing AG, Cham 2018, ISBN 978-3-319-78827-2 , pp. 21-38 (Chapter 2) full text (PDF) .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The late-band ceramic mass grave of Kilianstädten, southern Wetterau. In: rgzm.de . Retrieved May 12, 2019 .