Construction work along the future A14 highway between Dolle and Lüderitz has revealed an urn burial ground from the late Bronze Age.
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"The place obviously served as a 'cemetery' for several villages, whose remains were also found nearby", she said
"The deceased were burned on pyres. Their relatives placed their ashes and bone remains in urns, together with anything which had not been destroyed by fire, such as bronze clasps or jewellery made of metal," excavation leader Anette Schubert explains.
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"Concentrations of bone fragments found in some graves suggest that occasionally vessels made of organic material, such as wood or reeds, were also used as urn. Only in a few individual cases were the burnt human remains loosely scattered in the graves", the expert continues.
About ten kilometres away, a comparable urn grave field was uncovered near Colbitz a few years ago in the course of motorway construction, adds chief archaeologist Susanne Friederich. "While the graves there had been placed in the ground on five superimposed layers, we find a looser distribution of the burials in the Dolle cemetery," she explains.
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In the 18th and 19th centuries, local farmers repeatedly came across Bronze Age remains while ploughing. It is unclear where their finds have gone. Probably the clay pots and shards simply landed on the rubbish heaps.
The burials, especially the urns, are recovered on site as small blocks. This ensures that the archaeological work, despite its complexity in the field, is completed quickly.
Credit: ct-press |
Source: Allgemeine Zeitung Online [May 20, 2019]
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