Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Gerichtsberg
DatedEst. 3500–500 BCE
Photo Erell · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Gerichtsberg near Kagenow is a Bronze Age burial mound in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It stands in the middle of a field about 1400 metres north-east of Kagenow, in the locality of Neetzow, and 1200 metres north-west of Priemen, in the locality of Liepen; both places belong to the municipality of Neetzow-Liepen.
The mound was probably raised in the Middle Bronze Age, and several later burials with additional mounding took place within the Bronze Age. It is listed as an archaeological monument in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
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
Gerichtsberg
The historical boundary between the land parcels of Kagenow and Priemen runs straight across the mound.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound has a diameter of 25 metres and rises above its surroundings. The historical boundary between the land parcels of Kagenow and Priemen runs straight across the mound. The burial mound was probably built in the Middle Bronze Age, and further interments were later made in it, each accompanied by an enlargement of the covering mound.
NameSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)CC BY-SA 4.0
The field name Gerichtsberg (court hill) points to the patrimonial jurisdiction of the surrounding manorial estates in the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)CC BY-SA 4.0
Burial mounds are found across Germany, from the northern plain to the south. Those of the Middle Bronze Age give a whole culture its name: the Tumulus culture (Hügelgräberkultur), which was dominant in Central Europe from about 1600 to 1300 BCE and buried its dead beneath mounds. It descended from the Unetice culture, and its society was a warrior society, as the weapons in the graves show. The Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture, which followed it, preferred cremation, and the Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age revived the great mound for chieftains.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
German Hügelgräber and megalithic mounds
Burial mounds are found across Germany, from the northern plain to the south. Those of the Middle Bronze Age give a whole culture its name: the Tumulus culture (Hügelgräberkultur), which was dominant in Central Europe from about 1600 to 1300 BCE and buried its dead beneath mounds. It descended from the Unetice culture and covered parts of southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and France. Its society was a warrior society, as the weapons in the graves show. The Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture, which followed it, preferred cremation, and the Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age revived the great mound for chieftains.
Hallstatt-period mounds can be spectacular. The Hochdorf grave in Baden-Württemberg, of about 530 BCE, was found in 1968 and excavated in 1978 to 1979. Its mound, originally 6 metres high and about 60 metres across, had been worn down to about 1 metre. Inside lay a man of about fifty on a bronze recliner with eight wheels, wearing a gold-plated torc, with a four-wheeled wagon and drinking horns.
In the north, many mounds are older and belong to the Funnel Beaker culture, whose stone-chambered tombs are described in the articles on northern German megalithic tombs. Here a mound may cover a megalithic chamber, and the Atlas's classification sometimes cannot tell the two apart without a field visit.
Dating usually combines typology, pottery and metalwork and, where timber survives, tree-ring dating. Many mounds have been ploughed down, as Hochdorf shows.
When visiting, look for mounds in groups in woodland, where they survive best, for the hollow of an old central trench, and for kerbs of stone.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus culture, Wikipedia: Hallstatt culture, Wikipedia: Funnel beaker culture, Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Heuneburg, Wikipedia: Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave · 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.
Photographs
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3500–500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Germany; this site has not been dated itself. German barrows ( Hugelgraber) run from the Neolithic (construction in central and south-west Germany c. 3500 BC and northern and central Germany c. 3400 BC) to the Late Bronze and Iron Age.Source for this date
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 53°54′29″ N, 13°25′59″ EFor a GPS or map app: 53.90800, 13.43300
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.
- Megalithic tombGroßsteingrab Schmatzin3500–2800 BCE
Grabhügel Zarrenthin3500–500 BCE- Megalithic tombGroßsteingrab Schlatkow3500–2800 BCE
- Megalithic tombGroßsteingräber bei Klein Polzin3500–2800 BCE
Großdolmen von Menzlin3500–2800 BCE
Dolmen of Plestlin3500–2800 BCE- MegalithGroßsteingrab Passow3500–2500 BCE
Großsteingrab Kruckow 13500–2800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q1513020wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Großsteingrab Schmatzin6.2 km E
- Grabhügel Zarrenthin7.9 km W
- Großsteingrab Schlatkow9.1 km E
- Großsteingräber bei Klein Polzin12 km E
- Großdolmen von Menzlin12 km E
- Dolmen of Plestlin14 km W
- Großsteingrab Passow15 km NW
- Großsteingrab Kruckow 115 km W
- Großsteingrab Alt Tellin16 km W
- Großsteingräber bei Damerow17 km NW
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Gerichtsberg (bei Kagenow)" (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