Obernjesa funeral hut
The Obernjesa Necropolis is a prehistoric collective grave north of Obernjesa in the municipality of Rosdorf in the district of Göttingen in the Leinetal in Lower Saxony . The grave, excavated in 1989, is located south of the K 30 county road, roughly in the middle between Sieboldshausen and Niedernjesa. The grave was built using the wood and rubble construction method typical of this region. Late Neolithic systems of this type were distinguished by U. Fischer in 1956 on the basis of their wall construction in wall and plank chambers. Obernjesa is a pile chamber, as the criterion of drywall construction is missing.
The soil finding
The soil type is a parabrown earth made from loess . The dark color indicates its black earth past . Black earth emerged from the early Holocene and was present at the latest at the beginning of the Neolithic . Older and more recent pits were also explored within the excavation area ( Rössen culture or older pre-Roman Iron Age ).
The hut of the dead
Foundation trench
The shape of the shack is determined by the remains of the foundation that supported the vertical plank walls. The inside width of the trapezoidal system is 3.0 m in the northwest and 3.9 m in the southeast. The system is about 6.0 m long on the central axis. The base of the foundations is designed as a sole. The width is between 0.4 and 0.6 m. The average depth of the foundation trench is 0.35 m. The hut was built with vertical wooden walls and a flat beamed ceiling. The front side in the southeast is set back by about 0.6 m compared to the side walls and forms a small ante . The approximately one meter wide coaxial access was probably located near the western long side. The foundation on the front is disturbed by one of the pits for the Hallstatt body burials.
In the foundation, mostly flat stones ( Keuper and limestone ) of different sizes were used. The distribution of Keuper and Limestone did not reveal any concentrations. The materials are available within a radius of one to four kilometers. The stone wedging of the plank walls was inconsistent. There is evidence of bilateral and unilateral wedging. Stone-free areas show that the timbers were about 0.30 m thick. The difference between the NW and SE half in the foundations is striking. The wider south-east half, with its more than twice as large number of wedge stones, is stronger than the northwest half. However, the strength of the timbers is the same. The strength of the timber makes an original foundation depth of 0.9 m likely. The question of a previously existing paving cannot be answered clearly.
Finds
The finds consist of charcoal, clay , ceramics, bones, a few chips ( flint and pebble slate) and a stone ax . The stone ax and the ceramic material were culturally part of the Wartberg culture . The pottery is, however, heavily fragmented and of a soft clay make. Fire, aging, wall thickness, etc. allow differentiation, but a chronological-cultural breakdown based on the design is hardly recognizable. There are a total of 225 undecorated and seven decorated wall fragments, 20 edge fragments and three handle fragments.
The finds from the burial horizon come from the foundation trenches and the younger pits, into which material from the interior of the chamber got when backfilling. Numerous small-scale burned and unburned bones, all of human origin, were found in five pits. An assignment of some skull fragments from the pits to a male individual seems likely. Due to the state of preservation, no further statements are possible, but the collective and bi-ritual character of the overall findings can be determined unequivocally.
context
Obernjesa is a hut for the dead that has been sunk a little underground. In contrast to the much more common constructions in the form of all-roof houses , it was executed with a vertical wall and flat beamed ceiling, as was done by excavator H. Stahlhofen in the likewise trapezoidal death hut in Dedeleben , in the Harz district, for the establishment of the Bernburg culture supposed. Such a construction is rare, but was documented in the gallery grave of Sorsum discovered in 1955 and is assumed for the gallery grave near Hohenwepel, Höxter district. Vertical wooden walls only have their parallels outside of central Germany.
Obernjesa is located in the border area to Thuringia (Bernburg culture) and North Hesse (Wartberg culture) and could have absorbed influences from both sides. The trapezoidal shape as a floor plan is not unknown in the neighboring regions. The trapezoid was modified in Obernjesa to a shape that corresponds to the longitudinal section through a heel socket and has no parallels anywhere. Since its access is on the larger narrow side, references to Obernjesa are more likely to be made to the Hessian gallery grave of Lohra. In Obernjesa, apart from the access, it is possible that the proximity of the Hessian gallery graves was reflected, which is also indicated by the north-west-south-east orientation of the hut for the dead. Most of the huts for the dead in Central Germany are orientated towards OW. Deviations only occur in Thuringia, where U. Fischer made Hessian influences probable for the wall chamber of Gotha.
The close connections between the Wartberg group and Bernburg culture were highlighted in 1986 by W. Walther, who pointed out the chronological significance of the Lochbuckelzier characteristic of the Wartberg group. In Obernjesa a shard with a hole hump ornament was found. W. Schwellnus assigned them to inventory group B of the younger Wartberg ceramics.
literature
- Uwe Moos: A multi-period burial place near Obernjesa, Gde. Rosdorf, Ldkr. Göttingen In: Die Kunde NF41 / 42 1990/91 p. 135ff
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the more recent literature, the term house of the dead is used to distinguish this stately structural form from smaller - mostly underground wooden structures
- ↑ For Walther, the hole hump ornament "presumably parallels some of the corded ceramics (older phase) and the developed Bernburg culture" (Walther 1986, p. 108)