Iron Age cremations buried around Bronze Age mound

A Bronze Age burial mound surrounded by Iron Age cremation burials has been discovered in Petershagen, northwestern Germany.

Archaeologists excavated the site before expansion of a gravel mine after aerial photography revealed rich plant growth in a large circle. The vegetation, which contrasted sharply with the dry gravel around it, was a signal to the archaeologists that there was almost certainly a burial mound there. The mounds were bordered by ditches that were infilled with rich soil which provided a welcoming home for plant life, unlike the gravel.

The Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (LWL) Archaeology unit followed up with test excavations based on the aerial data. They found a cremation burial almost immediately, and then more, both cinerary urns and graves consisting of funeral pyres buried after the ceremony. They were buried around the perimeter ditch of the burial mound, using the much earlier Bronze Age mound, which at that time would have loomed large on the landscape, as a monumental centerpoint of a necropolis.

The preliminary dating of the graves is based on the shapes and ornamentation of the urns. The earliest of them date to the 7th to 5th centuries B.C. when the Iron Age Nienburg group occupied the area.

According to the previous classification of the recovered finds, the cremation graves were buried in the ground between the 2nd century BC and the turn of the era. To date the graves without grave goods, the age will be determined using radiocarbon dating of charcoal. According to the scientists, surprises are always possible. The actual period of use of the necropolis can therefore only be clearly assessed in conjunction with the results of the scientific dating.

Sebastian Düvel, scientific advisor at the LWL Archaeology for Westphalia, on the new discoveries: “The monuments, which are still clearly visible centuries after they were built, represented an important reference point in the landscape. In this case, they were the central element for further burials in the 7th to 5th centuries BC and in the 2nd to 1st centuries BC. The new sites clearly consolidate the image of an extensive burial landscape with dozens of mounds and adjacent burials along the Westphalian Middle Weser.”

* This article was originally published here