
Großsteingrab Wenzendorf
DatedEst. 3500–2800 BCE
Photo smarties · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Großsteingrab Wenzendorf, also called the Großsteingrab Wennerstorf or Margaretenstein, is a megalithic tomb of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture near Wennerstorf, a district of the municipality of Wenzendorf in the Landkreis Harburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. It carries the Sprockhoff number 671 and is dated by typological estimate to between 3500 and 2800 BCE.
The monument has an oval mound 16 m long and 11 m wide and appears to be a great dolmen (Großdolmen).
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
Großsteingrab Wenzendorf
The tomb lies north of Wennerstorf, roughly halfway between the village and the A 1 motorway, in a small wood.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WenzendorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WenzendorfCC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb lies north of Wennerstorf, roughly halfway between the village and the A 1 motorway, in a small wood.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WenzendorfCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WenzendorfCC BY-SA 4.0
The oval mound is 16 m long and 11 m wide and contains an east-west oriented burial chamber. In its original state the chamber consisted of five pairs of wall stones on the long sides, two end stones at the short sides and five capstones, which indicates a great dolmen.
The western end stone is still in situ, as are, counted from the west, the first and third stones of the south side and the third stone of the north side. The second stone of the north side has been blasted into three pieces. The western capstone has slipped northwards, and the next capstone lies in pieces, also blasted, inside the chamber. Two further blasted stones lie at the eastern end of the chamber and can no longer be identified clearly as wall stones or capstones.
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
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 671 CE
Es trägt die Sprockhoff-Nummer 671.
Source
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
7 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. 3500–2800 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°22′04″ N, 9°46′29″ EFor a GPS or map app: 53.36781, 9.77469
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 Q15813004wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Großsteingrab Wenzendorf seitlich.jpgsmartiesCC BY-SA 4.0
- Großsteingrab bei Wenzendorf (Frontalansicht).jpgArtefaktikusCC0
- Großsteingrab Wenzendorf.jpgsmartiesCC BY-SA 4.0
- Großsteingrab Wenzendorf 01.jpgEinsamer SchützeCC BY-SA 4.0
- Großsteingrab Wenzendorf 02.jpgEinsamer SchützeCC BY-SA 4.0
- NLD Großsteingrab Wenzendorf 01.jpgC. S. Fuchs, Niedersächsisches Landesamt für DenkmalpflegeCC BY-SA 4.0
- NLD Großsteingrab Wenzendorf 02.jpgC. S. Fuchs, Niedersächsisches Landesamt für DenkmalpflegeCC BY-SA 4.0
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Großsteingrab Wenzendorf" (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
