Talheim massacre
In the Neolithic ( linear ceramic ) massacre of Talheim around 5100 BC. In the area of today's town of Talheim near Heilbronn (Baden-Württemberg) 34 people were violently killed. The incident became known through spectacular skeletal finds in 1983.
Finding
In March 1983, the Talheimer wine Erhard Schoch came when he was a cold frame at his home in Won wanted to put "Pfädle" deeper, to human bone and reported this to the authorities. In a three-square-meter pit, skeletal parts lay criss-cross, thrown on top of each other at random, and compressed to a height of around twelve centimeters in a good 7,000 years. In total, the remains of 34 people who had died as a result of violence were found, more precisely the skeletons of nine men, seven women and two adults of indefinite sex, all around the age range from 20 to 60 years, as well as 16 children and adolescents in the Age from two to 20 years. Most skeletons show unhealed head trauma. Characteristic fragments from the band ceramic culture indicate that the event - comparable to the event in the Kilianstädten massacre - took place in the early Neolithic .
interpretation
Impact fractures suggest that some victims were slain with flint blades that are typical of cutting tools of the linear ceramic culture . Arrow shots are also documented, so the act should have occurred in good lighting conditions. The bones from Talheim have been dated to an average age of around 5000 years cal BC by 14 C dating . The bones can therefore be assigned to the late ceramic band period .
Because several skulls showed fractures at the back of the head, because of the age structure of the group as well as because of the non-ritual burial , it is assumed that the perpetrators ambushed the group in the morning or afterwards and then buried the victims. Because injuries to the back of the head predominated, there was probably no strong resistance on the part of the victims, they were mostly killed in sleep or on the run.
Jens Lüning cites the Talheim massacre as evidence of social tensions towards the end of the band pottery.
Using isotope analyzes of the tooth enamel , it was found that the dead belonged to three groups, of which only one was at home. Another interpretation therefore assumes that it was a Stone Age woman robbery due to the lack of female bones from this group of the attacked. Researchers around Alexander Bentley from the University of Durham and Joachim Wahl from the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Konstanz therefore suspect “that the women were deliberately spared during the slaughter by the attackers and then kidnapped. However, it is still unclear why other people were at the scene. In the case of the women who belonged to the other two groups, the attackers certainly had no mercy: They were also murdered. "
exhibition
The Talheim massacre was the subject of the exhibition Tatort Talheim in the autumn / winter 2007/2008 exhibition in the Archeology Museum of the Heilbronn City Museum in Deutschhof , where exhibits on the subject can still be seen. The traveling exhibition was also from February 16 to June 22, 2008 in the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann , from February 28 to May 10, 2009 in the Archaeological State Museum Baden-Württemberg in Constance and from April 26, 2011 to January 8, 2012 in the Museum of the Varus Battle to see in Kalkriese.
In July 2008, an information board was unveiled at the site of the find as part of a historic circular hiking trail in the Talheim community, explaining the background to the find and the find itself.
literature
- Andrea Zeeb-Lanz , Fabian Haack , Silja Bauer : Human sacrifice - Destruction rituals with cannibalism - Skull cult: The extraordinary ceramic band from Herxheim in the southern Palatinate. ( [2] on projekt-herxheim.de)
Web links
- Reconstructed face of an older man killed in Talheim ( [3] on talheim.de)
- The Talheim mass grave - a unique find from the Neolithic Age ( [4] on talheim.de)
References and comments
- ↑ Helmuth Voith: Archaeological State Museum Konstanz: "Tatort Talheim - 7000 years later". Commissioner archaeologist determined . In: Schwäbische Zeitung of March 12, 2009
- ↑ a b c Joachim Wahl & Hans Günther König: Anthropological-traumatic examination of the human skeletal remains from the mass grave made of ribbon ceramics near Talheim, Heilbronn district . In: Find reports Baden-Württemberg 12, 1987
- ↑ Wild Eva Maria, Stadler Peter, Häusser Annemarie, Kutschera Walter, Steier Peter, Teschler-Nicola Maria, Wahl Joachim, Windl Helmut J, "Neolithic massacres: Local skirmish or General warfare in Europe?" Proceedings of the 18th International Radiocarbon Conference. Radiocarbon 46/1, 2004, 377–385, here p. 383. ( online )
- ↑ Jens Lüning, "Basics of sedentary life", in: Traces of the millennia. Exhibition catalog, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1337-2 , pp. 217-218.
- ^ T. Douglas Price, Joachim Wahl, R. Alexander Bentley: Isotopic evidence for mobility and group organization among Neolithic farmers at Talheim, Germany, 5000 BC . In: European Journal of Archeology . tape 9 , no. 2-3 , 2006, ISSN 1461-9571 , pp. 259–284 , doi : 10.1177 / 1461957107086126 ( cambridge.org [accessed October 5, 2018]).
- ↑ Talheim Massacre: Women robbery in the Stone Age . ( Spektrum.de [accessed on October 5, 2018]).
- ↑ Talheim Massacre: Murderous Stone Age people wanted to rob women . In: Spiegel Online . June 3, 2008 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 5, 2018]).
- ↑ Gundula Lidke: Investigations on the meaning of violence and aggression in the Neolithic of Germany with special consideration of Northern Germany. Dissertation, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University Greifswald, 2005 [1]
- ↑ VARUSSCHLACHT in Osnabrücker Land gGmbH - Museum and Park Kalkriese. Retrieved October 5, 2018 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 4 ′ 57.5 " N , 9 ° 11 ′ 9.75" E