Großsteingrab Dalum
DatedEst. 3500–2800 BCE
Photo Megalithicguy · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Ganggrab von Dalum (Großsteingrab Dalum) is a Neolithic passage grave 5.7 kilometres south of Bippen, in the Samtgemeinde Fürstenau, Landkreis Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is catalogued as Sprockhoff no. 887.
It was built between 3500 and 2800 BCE and is a megalithic monument of the Funnel Beaker culture (TBK). Several supporting stones and almost all the stones of its enclosure are missing.
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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
Großsteingrab Dalum
The monument lies slightly south-east of the hamlet of Dalum, on the Stellungsweg towards Klein Bokern, in a field.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument lies slightly south-east of the hamlet of Dalum, on the Stellungsweg towards Klein Bokern, in a field. Numerous prehistoric sites are known in the Maiburg state forest, especially to the south and east of the grave.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
The chamber is of the Emsland type, is oriented north-west to south-east and is about 15 metres long. Several of its supporting stones are missing, as are almost all the stones of the oval, closely fitting enclosure. Seven of the originally eight capstones survive, though most have fallen. In places the chamber can be reconstructed to a width of 1.8 metres.
The supporting stones in the entrance area stand so far outside the line of the chamber wall that they form irregular niches. They do not form the trapezoidal chamber areas known from other passage graves.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
Older literature mentions the remains of three megalithic tombs east of Dalum. Sprockhoff described these stones as natural accumulations. The so-called Hexentanzplatz is now known as the megalithic tomb Maiburg 2.
The grave is described in Ernst Sprockhoff's Atlas der Megalithgräber Deutschlands (part 3, 1975) and in Wolfgang Schlüter's Die Großsteingräber des Osnabrücker Raumes (1979). A 1973 publication by Sven Schütte and Wolf-Dieter Tempel deals with an urn secondary burial of the pre-Roman Iron Age in the mound of a megalithic tomb at Dalum.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC 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
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 2800 BCE
887. Es entstand zwischen 3500 und 2800 v. Chr. und ist eine Megalithanlage der Trichterbecherkultur (TBK).
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
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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
- 52°32′59″ N, 7°44′16″ EFor a GPS or map app: 52.54964, 7.73789
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.
- Passage tomb (passage grave)Großsteingrab Klein Bokern3500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Restrup3500–2800 BCE
Hekeser Steine3500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Bockraden3500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Berge3500–2800 BCE- Megalithic tombGroßsteingrab Westerholte3500–2800 BCE
Rickelmann 23500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Meyer3500–2800 BCE
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q1363466wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Großsteingrab Dalum.jpgMegalithicguyCC BY-SA 4.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ganggrab von Dalum" (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
- Wikipedia (German): Ganggrab von DalumCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q1363466CC0