Dolmen Daerstorf
DatedEst. 3500–2800 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Großsteingrab Daerstorf (Dolmen Daerstorf) is a megalithic tomb of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture near Daerstorf, part of the municipality of Neu Wulmstorf in the district of Harburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is catalogued as Sprockhoff number 669 and is dated by typological estimate to between 3500 and 2800 BCE.
The monument is a long mound 55 m long, part of which was excavated by Willi Wegewitz in 1950.
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Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Dolmen Daerstorf
The megalithic tomb of Elstorf is about 470 m to the south-west, in the same state forest.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb lies 2.5 km south-east of Daerstorf in the Staatsforst Rosengarten. The megalithic tomb of Elstorf is about 470 m to the south-west, in the same state forest.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument is an approximately east-west oriented long mound 55 m long, 10 m wide and 1.2 m high. A depression lies in the eastern part.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Willi Wegewitz excavated at the depression in 1950 and found the remains of the burial chamber. He recorded a paved chamber floor and the standing traces of three wall stones of the northern long side and of the end stone of the eastern narrow side. A wall stone of the southern side lay just under a metre south of its original position. The chamber was 4.2 m long and 1.8 m wide.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab DaerstorfCC BY-SA 4.0
The megalithic tombs of northern Germany and the Netherlands were built by the Funnel Beaker culture (about 4100 to 2800 BCE), and the style, called Nordic megalith architecture, emerged between 3500 and 2800 BCE.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
German and Dutch Hünengräber (hunebedden)
The megalithic tombs of northern Germany and the Netherlands were built by the Funnel Beaker culture (about 4100 to 2800 BCE), and the style, called Nordic megalith architecture, emerged between 3500 and 2800 BCE. In the Netherlands the tombs are the hunebedden, built between 3470 and 3250 BCE by the western group of the Funnel Beaker culture and used until about 2760 BCE. Of an estimated 100 original tombs, 54 are preserved, 52 of them in the province of Drenthe and two in Groningen. After the Funnel Beaker culture ended the sites were reused by the Single Grave and Bell Beaker cultures in the Early Bronze Age and, to a lesser extent, into the Middle Ages.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern up to 5,000 megalith tombs were erected, and more than 1,000 are preserved and protected by law; they belong to the youngest and easternmost part of the western European tradition. Most are dolmens, often lying inside a circular or trapezoid frame of standing stones. Locally they are known as Hünengräber, "giants' tombs", or Großsteingräber, "large stone tombs"; the trapezoid frame is a Hünenbett, "giants' bed", and the circular one a Bannkreis. Between 1964 and 1974 Ewald Schuldt excavated over a hundred sites there and sorted them into simple dolmens, extended dolmens, passage graves, great dolmens, unchambered long barrows and stone cists.
Folklore: the German and Dutch names, with Hüne meaning "giant", carry the old idea that giants were buried here. This is a tradition; the stones were placed by Neolithic farmers.
When visiting, look for the capstones on their supports and the frame of kerbstones around them.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Megaliths in the Netherlands, Wikipedia: Megaliths in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Wikipedia: Nordic megalith architecture, Wikipedia: Funnel beaker culture, Wikipedia: Dolmen · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3500–2800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for dolmens in Germany; this site has not been dated itself. German dolmens (Huengrab) belong to the Nordic megalith tradition which emerged predominantly between 3500 and 2800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 53°25′26″ N, 9°49′56″ EFor a GPS or map app: 53.42395, 9.83216
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q15812977wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Großsteingrab Daerstorf" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors