Megalith (abstract root)The Copper Age
Großsteingrab Wartin
DatedEst. 3500–2500 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
The Großsteingrab Wartin was a megalithic tomb of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture at Wartin, part of Casekow in the district of Uckermark, Brandenburg, Germany. It was destroyed between 1940 and 1944 during the construction of an airfield. The catalogue gives an estimated date of 3500 to 2500 BCE, based on typology.
The destruction was accompanied by an archaeological investigation led by Otto Kunkel and Hans Jürgen Eggers. The finds went to the municipal museum in Stettin and survive today only in part. The tomb bears the Sprockhoff number 575.
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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 Wartin
The tomb lay west-north-west of Wartin, directly on the border with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb lay west-north-west of Wartin, directly on the border with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It was part of a necropolis used from the Neolithic into the Iron Age.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
The grave consisted of several components which, because of poor documentation, cannot all be clearly related to one another. The earliest was a Neolithic cultural layer, on which a Hünenbett (long mound) was built. A stone burial chamber was sunk into this, and several secondary and later burials were found in its immediate surroundings. In the Iron Age a burial mound was raised over the chamber.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
The lowest cultural layer probably derived from a settlement. It was on average 5 cm thick and was cut through by the sunken chamber. Under the chamber were four postholes, and it is unclear whether they were made when the chamber was built or belonged to the settlement. The layer contained numerous potsherds, mostly undecorated, flint tools (blades and scrapers), bone tools and animal bones. The finds belong to the early Funnel Beaker culture.
The Hünenbett was slightly trapezoidal and oriented east to west. Its width was at least 3.3 m in the west and at most 5.3 m in the east. Its length was 22 m according to Eberhard Kirsch, while Hans Jürgen Eggers and Kazimierz Siuchniński give 35 m. The kerb consisted of relatively small stones. The eastern end was badly damaged by later installations. Whether the east end was framed with larger boulders, as Siuchniński supposed and Ernst Sprockhoff adopted, cannot be established with certainty.
Because of the later alterations it is unclear whether the Hünenbett had a stone chamber in its first building phase. Human bones and sherds of three vessels were found 1.5 m west of the later mound. Siuchniński interpreted them as the primary burial, a grave without stone protection, which would make the monument in its original phase a chamberless Hünenbett. The vessels were two funnel beakers and a collared flask of the early Funnel Beaker culture. The excavation records do not state whether these were grave goods or displaced finds.
The mound fill of the Hünenbett produced further finds of unclear original context. They may come from the original cultural layer, from the cleared stone chamber, from other destroyed graves not recognised by the excavators, or may be offerings. They include mostly decorated potsherds, fragments of two stone axes, flint material, hollowed grindstones, worked and unworked animal bones and a “Krähenstein” (crow stone). The datable finds belong to the Havelländische Kultur (Havelland culture).
The stone chamber was sunk into the eastern part of the Hünenbett at a later date and encased in an oval mound of stones and earth. It was oriented east to west and consisted of three stone slabs on each long side and one on each narrow side, made of granite and sandstone. The chamber was 3 m long and 1.3 m wide. The entrance lay in the eastern half of the south long side, preceded by two wall slabs forming a passage 0.7 m long, with a threshold stone between passage and chamber. The floor was paved with small stone slabs. No capstones spanning the full width of the chamber were found. Instead the excavators found several smaller slabs, which they interpreted as the cover of a wooden roof that had not survived; according to Kirsch this interpretation does not agree with the finds. Sprockhoff classified the chamber as a small passage grave of the Holsteiner Kammer subtype, while Hans-Jürgen Beier called it a submegalithic passage grave cist.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
The earth-filled chamber contained numerous grave goods attributable to at least three burials. Close to the entrance, directly on the paving, stood a hanging vessel and an amphora. Together with a fragment of a kettle-shaped vessel and sherds of other vessels, they belonged to the original burial of the Havelland culture. A fragment of a stone axe, a bone awl, a transverse arrowhead, a crow stone, a pierced red-deer canine, two or three pierced animal teeth, flint blades and flakes, and animal bones probably belong to the same burial. At least five individuals were probably interred, since human bones were found, including five lower jaws. The bones were not examined.
A globular amphora, a double-conical beaker and a conical beaker with a wart-wreath decoration come from a burial of the Globular Amphora culture. An undecorated beaker belongs to the older Funnel Beaker culture. Immediately outside the western narrow side of the chamber a secondary burial of the Single Grave culture of the end of the Neolithic was found.
A monolith grave lay 4.5 m east of the chamber, and it is unclear whether it formed part of the megalithic tomb. It consisted of a single burial under a boulder more than 1 m in diameter. Siuchniński interpreted the boulder as a guardian stone at the eastern narrow side of the Hünenbett, but no further stones survive between the monolith and the mound to prove that they belonged together. The grave held a single burial oriented north-east to south-west, in a crouched position on the left side. The skeleton was poorly preserved. The only grave good was an undecorated jug, which Kirsch assigns to the younger eastern Funnel Beaker culture, whereas Eggers and Siuchniński assign it to the Early Bronze Age. The jug went to the museum in Stettin and no longer exists.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
In the Iron Age a further burial mound was piled directly over the mound that surrounded the stone chamber and was enclosed with a ring of stones.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
In north-eastern Germany, in what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Funnel Beaker people raised up to 5,000 megalithic tombs. They were erected between 3500 and 3200 BCE and were built of glacial erratic boulders.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Großsteingräber of northern Germany
In the German north-east, the Funnel Beaker (TRB) people raised up to 5,000 megalith tombs in what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. More than 1,000 are preserved and protected by law, and 144 have been excavated since 1945. They were erected between 3500 and 3200 BCE in a short time period of about 200 years, or seven generations, with the oldest dating to phase C of the Early Neolithic and most built at the beginning of the Middle Neolithic. The tombs were made of glacial erratic boulders, with the gaps filled with red sandstone.
Many lie in groups, and the Atlas records some clusters under a single name. On Rügen the Lancken-Granitz dolmens are a group of seven tombs used by the Funnelbeaker culture, some of them until the early Bronze Age; three are encircled by rectangles or a stone circle of solitary rocks, and one has a "guardian stone" on its east side. One of them has six compartments, an unusually high number. In 1969 the tombs were assessed archaeologically, and Stone Age and Bronze Age grave goods were retrieved.
The Necropolis of Soderstorf in Lower Saxony shows the long use of such places: the site was used for more than 2,000 years and has a megalithic tomb of 3500 to 2800 BCE, excavated in 1883, with an inner chamber of 6.2 by 1.65 metres still covered by a mound, as well as a tumulus tomb, a stone circle and urn burials.
Folklore: in the region the dolmens are called Hünengräber, "giants' tombs", from the old idea that giants lay in them.
When visiting, look for the clusters of tombs, for the frame of the kerb, and for the placement of the entrance.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Megaliths in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Wikipedia: Lancken-Granitz dolmens, Wikipedia: Necropolis of Soderstorf, Wikipedia: Simple dolmen, Wikipedia: Megalithic entrance · CC BY-SA 4.0
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3500–2500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megaliths in Germany; this site has not been dated itself. German megaliths (Huengrab) are placed at c. 3500 BC in central and south-west Germany and c. 3400 BC in northern and central Germany.Source for this date
Where it stands
Germany
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 53°15′35″ N, 14°06′56″ EFor a GPS or map app: 53.25959, 14.11544
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.
- MegalithSchwaneberg Dolmen3500–2500 BCE
Großsteingrab Brüssow-Hammelstall3500–2800 BCE- MegalithDolmen Brüssow Hammelstall3500–2500 BCE
Großsteingrab Wollschow 233500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Wollschow 53500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Wollschow 43500–2800 BCE
Necropolis of Wollschow3500–2800 BCE
Großsteingrab Wollschow 33500–2800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q56833324wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Schwaneberg Dolmen8.2 km N
- Großsteingrab Brüssow-Hammelstall13 km N
- Dolmen Brüssow Hammelstall13 km N
- Großsteingrab Wollschow 2316 km NE
- Großsteingrab Wollschow 516 km NE
- Necropolis of Wollschow16 km NE
- Großsteingrab Wollschow 416 km NE
- Großsteingrab Wollschow 316 km NE
- Großsteingrab Wollschow 217 km NE
- Großsteingrab Wollschow 117 km NE
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Großsteingrab Wartin" (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): Großsteingrab WartinCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q56833324CC0