Under the Bog for Thousands of Years - A New Funnel Beaker Settlement near Wanna, Germany

Abstract

An extensive drilling campaign to reconstruct a Neolithic landscape in the Ahlen-Falkenberger Moor in northwest Germany made it possible to document a cultural layer beneath a thick layer of bog peat formed by settlement activities, forest pasture or livestock grazing (site Wanna 1603). First excavations revealed finds that correspond to the typical spectrum of a settlement site. Both the typological and the absolute chronological dating, show that it was used between 3300 and 3000 cal BC and is therefore associated with the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB). This makes the site one of the few proven settlements with a preserved cultural layer in the TRB West group. In addition to the archaeological investigations, pedological, botanical and geological studies were also carried out. This made it possible to trace the development of the former coastline, the nearby wetlands and the successive covering of the site by bog peat. A large number of boreholes also made it possible to record the spatial extent of the site. Thus, landscape changes presumably triggered by human use could be identified. The temporal proximity of the settlement and land use to the changes in the landscape also indicates that the choice of settlement site was influenced by the latter. In sum, our research shows that in Wanna 1603 people of the TRB settled near a group of megalithic tombs on an island or pen­ insula in wetlands.