Buchau moated castle
The Wasserburg Buchau is a late Bronze Age wetland settlement on the Federsee , which is located around two kilometers northeast of today's city of Bad Buchau in Baden-Württemberg .
Research history
The facility was excavated by Hans Reinerth from 1920 to 1928 and 1936 . However, Reinerth never published a comprehensive scientific publication. The original excavation documents were not accessible to experts until Reinerth's death in 1990.
In recent research, some of its reconstructions and conclusions have been questioned. Among other things, the island location of the settlement determined by Reinerth is controversial. Oscar Paret already suspected the settlement off the lake in an extensive moor area. This conclusion was based on the recognized fact that the Federsee had a very low water level during the Bronze Age and thus had a very low water level.
In 1927 the archaeological excavation was recorded in one of the first German documentary films, "Excavations on the Buchau moated castle". It was preceded by a silent film made in the summer of 1920, today a unique document from the beginnings of filmmaking, with rustic-looking actors who enlivened the house in the "Wild Ried", a reconstruction of the Bronze Age on the Federsee.
Since 1998 the research institute of the Pfahlbaumuseum Unteruhldingen has been carrying out an evaluation of the excavation documents in cooperation with the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office , which has also been accompanied by exploratory excavations.
settlement
The settlement was founded around 1100 BC. BC and was fastened with a palisade ring staggered three times in the east . The fortification delimits a settlement area of 118 by 151 meters. Two construction phases could be verified. The older settlement consisted of 38 small houses with a floor area of 5 by 5 meters, which formed a clustered village . The younger settlement consisted (according to Reinerth) of nine three-wing building complexes, which took up an average of about 100 m². This younger settlement went around 800 BC. By a major fire.
Confirmation of findings and remains
The finds from the excavations are in the collection of the Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart and in the Federseemuseum in Bad Buchau.
Animal and vegetable finds
Animal and vegetable remains allow conclusions to be drawn about the life, the environment and the eating habits of our ancestors almost 3000 years ago. Archaeobotanical analyzes of the finds from the Bronze Age wetland settlement provide a wide range of facts that can be read from the plant remains and sometimes from the smallest, hard-to-recognize traces. Even inconspicuous traces of animal bones and pollen or even annual rings in old wood enable archaeological scientists to draw conclusions about agriculture, climate and the environment in earlier times and to create a comprehensive picture of the natural and cultural landscape in the Bronze Age. Countless botanical macro remains were found in the sediments of the bog of the archaeological find layers, which were deciphered in the laboratory using archaeobotanical analysis methods. The moist bog soil has preserved animal and botanical remains over millennia, which provide information about the nutritional basis of our ancestors, but also enable statements to be made about collecting and arable farming. So far, around 20,000 identifiable plant remains have been identified. Above all, spelled, barley and millet formed the basis for bread and porridge; Opium poppy seeds, soft fruits and lettuce are also important components of the diet.
Human finds
Between 1920 and 1938, during the first excavation, the skulls of 6 individuals, 5 children and adolescents and a woman, were discovered at regular intervals along the palisade, which, contrary to the common practice of urn field culture, had not been burned. Injuries to the two surviving skulls indicate that they were inflicted on purpose and in an elevated position with a blunt or semi-sharp instrument, such as a club or a hoe, and that the skulls were then deposited at regular intervals. In the meantime, according to a new study in 1998, it is assumed that this may have been a matter of cultic or magical-ritual motivated acts, for example to deter or protect, which the composition of the group would also suggest. In fact, there is evidence in the later Bronze Age, for example in the Swabian and Franconian Alb, that human sacrifices were common, with the remains of women, children and young people typically predominating, as in the present case.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Historical: Essen in the Bronze Age. What animal and vegetable finds reveal about the menu of the Bronze Age. In: Schwäbische Zeitung from August 8, 2011
- ↑ Buhl, p. 70 ff.
- ↑ Kubach, p. 73 f.
literature
- Christiane Ana Buhl: About murder, modeling and fashion. The cult of the human skull in the Bronze Age. In: Alfried Wieczorek , Wilfried Rosendahl (ed.): Skull cult. Head and skull in human cultural history. Accompanying volume for the special exhibition of the same name in the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum Mannheim 2011/12, pp. 69–73. Schnell und Steiner publishing house, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2454-1 .
- Wolfgang Kimmig : The "Wasserburg Buchau" . In: Schöne Schwaben , p. 61. Edition October 2001.
- Wolf Kubach: buried, sunk, burned - sacrificial finds and cult sites. In: Bronze Age in Germany. Special issue 1994: Archeology in Germany, pp. 65–74. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-8062-1110-8 .
- Hans Reinerth : The Federseemoor as settlement land for prehistoric man. Guide to Prehistory, Vol. 9. Leipzig 1936.
- Gunter Schöbel : Excavations in the late Bronze Age riverside settlement "Wasserburg Buchau" in the Federseemoor near Bad Buchau, Biberach district. In: Archaeological excavations in Baden-Württemberg 1998, pp. 74–77. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8062-1406-9 .
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 3 '29.3 " N , 9 ° 38' 0.9" E