Archaeology
Archaeologists find 6,000-year-old mounds containing wooden grave chambers
![](https://conspirazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/B1-Q8Mvqs.jpeg)
Archaeologists from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) have uncovered a burial landscape from the Neolithic period on the Eulenberg near Magdeburg, Germany.
Excavations have revealed two 6,000-year-old mounds from the Baalberge Group (4100–3600 BC), a late Neolithic culture that inhabited Central Germany and Bohemia.
According to a statement by the LDA, the mounds were constructed on top of wooden grave chambers where the archaeologists have found several burials. Both chambers are trapezoidal in shape, measuring from between 20 and 30 metres in length.
Almost a millennia later, the area in between the mounds was used as a processional route for sacrifices and burials by people from the Globular Amphora Culture (GAC).
These later people constructed a 50 cm wide palisade ditch between the mounds to demarcate the processional route which passed over several cattle burials.
The GAC had a tradition of using animal parts (such as a pig’s jaw) or even whole animals as grave offerings, with other examples of entire cattle burials found at other GAC sites across Central Europe.
Image Credit : LDA
Speaking to HeritageDaily, a representative of LDA said: “Along this path, pairs of young, 2-3 year old cattle were sacrificed and buried. In one case, the grave of a 35 to 40 year old man was dug in front the cattle burials, creating the image of a cart with a driver or a plough pulled by cattle.”
In the vicinity, archaeologists also found several Corded Ware Culture burial mounds that date from around 2800-2050 BC. The Corded Ware culture was a late Neolithic and early Copper Age people that is considered to be a likely vector for the spread of many of the Indo-European languages in Europe and Asia.
According to the researchers, the archaeological evidence indicates that the landscape remained an important ceremonial centre for prehistoric people over a long period of time.
Header Image Credit : LDA
Sources : State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) – Archaeologists discover a Neolithic burial landscape on the Eulenberg near Magdeburg.
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeology
Ornate grave goods found in Murom burial ground
Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
The Finnic Muromians were groups of settlers that lived within the vicinity of the Volga and Oka rivers. They spoke Muromian, an Uralic language that became extinct following their assimilation by the Slavs.
The burial ground, which dates from the early 10th century AD, was discovered on the eastern bank of the Oka river, located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region of Russia.
A total of seventeen burial pits have been identified, nine of which have been severely damaged through looting.
The surviving 8 burials contain the remains of four children, two women, and two men.
The men were accompanied with an ornate collection of grave goods, including arrowheads, knives, bronze bracelets, iron plates, a bronze buckle, and a whetstone.
At the bottom of one of the pits is a heavily corroded axe, along with a flint that has traces of iron-coated embossed leather and textile threads.
The burials containing women were also accompanied with high status funerary goods, such as a necklace of red-brown prismatic and dark blue berry-shaped beads of Byzantine origin, signet ring-shaped pendants, plate bracelets, a bronze spiral, and a silver ring.
Traces of wood within the pit fillings suggest that they originally contained a wooden structure, similar to a log house made of thin beams and covered with birch bark.
According to the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The culmination of the discoveries at the site were two clay vessels, testifying to direct and close contacts between the right-bank Muromians and the Old Russian population.”
Header Image Credit : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sources : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeology
Ghastly finds at gallows execution site
![](https://conspirazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/gast2-S78Iej.jpeg)
Archaeologists from the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt are currently excavating the site of a former gallows in Quedlinburg, Germany.
Gallows are usually wooden structures made of two vertical posts, a horizontal crossbeam, and a hanging noose. They have been used for executing criminals by hanging, a prevalent form of capital punishment in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a gallows site on Galgenberg, or ‘Gallows Hill,’ which was used for public executions by the courts in Quedlinburg from 1662 to 1809.
Excavations have revealed complete and partial burials in the area, along with bone pits containing multiple bundled burials, likely the result of mass executions carried out in a short period.
Image Credit : LDA
According to the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt, “these discoveries provide unique insights into penal practices from the Middle Ages and early modern times.”
A burial unrelated to the gallows has also been unearthed, featuring a wooden coffin containing the skeletal remains of an individual buried with a rosary chain.
Archaeologists propose that the burial’s characteristics suggest that the individual was likely a suicide victim, denied burial in consecrated ground so was placed in the cemetery near the gallows.
Also discovered is a so-called ‘revenant grave’, where the skeletal remains of a man was found placed on his back with several large stones placed across his chest.
According to the researchers, the stones were likely placed to prevent the individual from rising as a revenant, which are described as animated corpses in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups.
In medieval times, those inflicted with the revenant condition were generally suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit, or the victim of a vampiric attack.
Header Image Credit : LDA
Sources : State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
-
Ghosts2 years ago
Zozo: The Ouija Board Demon
-
Space2 years ago
Scientists claim to have found the answer what existed before the Universe
-
Ghosts2 years ago
Old Coot of Mount Greylock
-
General3 years ago
UC San Francisco engaging in horrifying experiments, organ harvesting of live babies in the name of “science”
-
Archaeology2 years ago
New discoveries at Ekʼ Balam during conservation works