Geomagnetic survey in the heath lands (photo: ArkVest, Esben Schlosser Mauritsen).

In September 2021, a team of ROOTS members and cooperating archaeologists from ArkVest - Arkæologi Vestjylland started a week-long excavation, coring, and geomagnetic campaign in the Danish Øster Lem Hede, West-Juteland.
In association with the Subcluster “Roots of Conflict: Competition and Conciliation” (link) the presently still visible rampart and ditch enclosing the elevated portions of a knoll at the edge of the protected heath landscape was investigated. The Subcluster puts an emphasis on developing a better understanding of the functions of fortifications or enclosures in processes of conflict and conciliation.
The site is situated in an archaeologically rich landscape, that shows evidence of occupation throughout Danish prehistory and history. The geographic proximity to the Ringkøbing fjord, intersections of rows of burial mounds still characterizing the landscape, and the Hulbælter (pit row alignments) uncovered by recent excavations and further sites expose the importance of the wider region.
More specifically, eastward adjacent to the site Øster Lem Hede is characterized by celtic fields, an early excavation in the 1930ies confirmed a Pre-Roman Iron Age settlement just a couple hundred meters to the North.

The evaluation and analysis of the campaign is still ongoing, a publication is in preparation.

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For further information please contact:
Anna K. Loy aloy@roots.uni-kiel.de or
Solveig Ketelsen sketelsen@roots.uni-kiel.de

Meet the team:
Joining from ArkVest: Esben Schlosser Mauritsen, Attilio Dona
Joining from ROOTS: Anna K. Loy, Solveig Ketelsen, Henning Andresen, Laurenz Hillmann
 
The trench. Note the discolourated section just in front of the three archaeologists: the upper layer of the ditch fill (photo: ArkVest, Esben Schlosser Mauritsen).
 
Excavation of features (photo: ArkVest, Esben Schlosser Mauritsen).

The team following the footpath to the site (photo: Solveig Ketelsen).