Requirements, structure and consequences of settlements and land use in north-western Germany at the time of the Funnel Beaker and Single Grave cultures (TRB North-western Germany)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hauke Jöns
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2009 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 128716243

During the past three years, a lot of valuable new information was collected by means of prospections, sondages, excavations and pollen analyses to gain new findings about the structures of settlements and graves of the Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB) as well as about the Neolithic vegetation and land use history of north-western Germany. These data were obtained in five exemplarily chosen local regions (the geest “islands” Flögeln/Sievern and Wanna, district. Cuxhaven, the geest ridges Hümmling in the Emsland, the Wildeshauser Geest and the parish of Lavenstedt, district Rotenburg/Wümme) and are now ready to be evaluated in the here applied last stage of the project “FBC North-western Germany”. For this not only features and finds from the excavations in Lavenstedt and Sievern (this project) but also those from the former excavation Flögeln and the rescue excavation Visbek-Uhlenkamp are available. By these, a detailed characterisation of the TRB west group in north-western Germany can be achieved. Major foci within this analysis will be the chronological developments, area use, subsistence strategies, settlement structures and house constructions of this culture. New radiocarbon dates and high resolution pollen diagrams allowed the reconstruction of the vegetation and land use history of the Emsland. For it, local with regional trends of the vegetation developments were compared to reveal evidences about intensity, extent and the chronological sequence of settlement activities which is reflected in the vegetation development. Currently, further data are collected to evaluate the settlement pattern of the whole study area. Conclusive analyses as well as further refinement of the temporal resolution of the pollen diagrams are scheduled for the last project stage. Thereby, the results will be connected to archaeological findings and climatic changes during that time. Which similarities or differences between the neighbouring regions in Schleswig-Holstein and the Netherlands exist will be analysed with statistical techniques.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1400: Early Monumentality and Social Differentiation. The Origin and Development of Neolithic Large-Scale Buildings and the Earliest Complex Societies in Northern Central Europe
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Felix Bittmann