Großsteingrab Westerholte
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
The Großsteingrab Westerholte was a megalithic tomb of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture at Westerholte, a district of Ankum in the district of Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany. The catalogue gives a typological dating of 3500 to 2800 BCE.
It was destroyed in 1972 by clearance work. It was probably a passage grave with a chamber 8.4 m long.
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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 Westerholte
4 km to the east and south-east are the graves Rickelmann 2, Rickelmann 1, Reinecke, Meyer, Grumfeld West and Grumfeld Ost.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
The grave lay south of Westerholte on the road to Ankum and Ueffeln. Several surviving megalithic tombs lie nearby: at distances between 650 m and 1.4 km to the east and south-east are the graves Rickelmann 2, Rickelmann 1, Reinecke, Meyer, Grumfeld West and Grumfeld Ost. The largely destroyed Großsteingrab im Büdenfeld lies 3 km to the south.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb was identified as a megalithic grave only in the 1950s. In 1972 it was destroyed by clearance work. A follow-up investigation of the site still yielded evidence of the structure of the monument.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
At the follow-up investigation the settings of the wall stones and remains of the chamber paving were still present. The monument was probably a passage grave with ten wall stones and five capstones. The chamber was 8.4 m long, and the entrance was probably on the south side. Today only an overgrown mound can be seen at the site.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Großsteingrab WesterholteCC BY-SA 4.0
The follow-up investigation recovered 40 sherds of Funnel Beaker pottery.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Megalithic tombs of the North European Plain
Across the plain from the Netherlands to Poland, the Funnel Beaker culture left thousands of megalithic tombs. Nordic megalith architecture emerged in northern Europe mainly between 3500 and 2800 BCE. Counts have risen as surveys improved: Schleswig-Holstein now reports 3,212 megalithic monuments and 958 long mounds, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 5,991 megaliths (against 648 in 2010), and Lower Saxony 1,155. Altogether 11,162 megaliths are known in these three regions, and with Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt the figure for northern Germany rises to 11,648. Denmark has 5,001 registered monuments, the Netherlands 101, Sweden 639 and Poland 18. Johannes Müller has suggested that originally more than 75,000 megaliths were built.
Monuments are classed by type: simple dolmens, extended dolmens, passage graves, great dolmens, unchambered long barrows and stone cists. The oldest are the simple dolmens, which appeared around 3500 BCE and are found across almost the whole area of Nordic megalith architecture. Their entrances were built to be reopened. A megalithic entrance had to seal the tomb, yet allow the community to gain access to the interior again, even after a long time, to perform rituals.
In the Netherlands the hunebedden were built between 3470 and 3250 BCE and used until about 2760 BCE; 54 of the original 100 survive, 52 of them in Drenthe. Poland has only 18 registered monuments, and the long barrows in parts of Poland were typically earthen rather than megalithic.
Dating combines radiocarbon dates from bone and pottery. The tombs were used by later cultures too, so a single tomb can hold remains from different periods.
When visiting, look at how the capstones sit on the supporting stones, how the entrance is built, and the frame of kerbstones around the mound.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Nordic megalith architecture, Wikipedia: Megaliths in the Netherlands, Wikipedia: Funnel beaker culture, Wikipedia: Megaliths in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1972
1972 wurde es durch Rodungsarbeiten zerstört.
Source
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 megalithic tombs in Germany; this site has not been dated itself. German stone tombs (Grosssteingraber) 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°29′26″ N, 7°52′04″ EFor a GPS or map app: 52.49065, 7.86782
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q98549168wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Großsteingrab Westerholte" (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