Wall chamber of Remlingen
The wall chamber of Remlingen is an important collective grave designed as a wall chamber grave from the Middle Neolithic (approx. 3000 years BC) on the Hohberg near Remlingen .
Discovery and excavation
The grave on the Hohberg near Remlingen was discovered by Remlingen local home nurse Norbert Koch in 1981 during a field inspection when he noticed a special concentration of stones. Not until 1997 was a test excavation carried out by employees of the former Braunschweig district government , which proved the existence of a wall chamber grave . Comparable Neolithic systems are known mainly from Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia . In the northern Harz foreland of Lower Saxony , this type of grave could be detected here for the first time.
The excavation in 1998 offered the opportunity to gain insight into the way of life and the cult of the dead of the Neolithic population. After that, life turned out to be hard and full of privation, as the average life expectancy of around 30 years shows. Archaeologists and anthropologists made use of the most modern techniques that enabled the digitized, three-dimensional documentation of wall walls, flagstone paving and the remains of the charred rafter roof of the burial chamber as well as all finds.
description
The east-west oriented “house of the dead”, which can be assigned to the Central German “Bernburg culture” on the basis of typical vessels and decorated shards , was exceptionally well preserved. With the up to 50 cm high surrounding wall made of foreign stones, the stone paving and the clearly recognizable remains of charred wood of the collapsed roof, there were good possibilities for reconstructing the wall chamber. Access was from the eastern narrow side. Left and right of this entrance area were found long bones and skull parts of cattle. From the east, the floor slopes down like a ramp towards the actual burial room. The remains of at least five people and other domestic animals, including sheep, goats and pigs, can be documented here. While the entire chamber was initially used, after the complex was cleared out and burned down, further burials were only carried out within the eastern half. In the western one, the complete skeleton of a dog puppy a few weeks old was found. The animal was deposited there together with a cup and a lower jaw of beef before the fire in the facility.
Find investigations
For further analysis of the finds, the charred wooden beams in particular offered the possibility of determining the type of wood used in the roof construction , in addition to C14 dating and dendrochronology . The bone finds from humans and animals were examined in the Institute for Zoology / Anthropology at the TU Braunschweig . As far as the state of preservation of the bones allowed, genetic analyzes were also carried out. Archaeobotanical examinations of the plant remains preserved in the burial chamber provided evidence of the “menu” of the population at the time.
reconstruction
In 2000, a six-meter-long section of the 12-meter-long wall chamber grave was partially dislocated to Remlingen and rebuilt there with the help of modern building materials.
literature
- Ulrich Dirks, Silke Grefen-Peters: Hidden for 5000 years: excavations of a Neolithic death hut near Remlingen in the Wolfenbüttel district . No. 21 . Isensee, Oldenburg 1999, ISBN 3-89598-651-8 , p. 72 .
- Ulrich Dirks: A new hut for the dead is being built in: Archeology in Lower Saxony , pp. 143–145, 2001
- Ulrich Dirks, Silke Grefen-Peters: A house for the dead - The Neolithic burial chamber from Hohberg near Remlingen In: Mamoun Fansa , Frank Both, Henning Haßmann (editor): Archeology | Land | Lower Saxony. 400,000 years of history. State Museum for Nature and Man, Oldenburg 2004. Pages 312–314.
Web links
- Description with photos
- Description with photos at Braunschweigische Landschaft
- The wall chamber grave Remlingen on Grosssteingraeber.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Literature: Hidden for 5000 years
Coordinates: 52 ° 6 ′ 49.55 " N , 10 ° 40 ′ 35.9" E