Research project T3_1

In Central Europe, considerable changes emerged with the establishment of metallurgy and associated specialisations. New supra-regional networks, new ideologies and social inequalities can be detected. These include new concepts of the afterlife and possibly changes in funeral customs of the community that buried its dead. By 3800 BCE at the latest, burial mounds with individual burials were built for the first time in Central Europe. Are they signs of social inequality, and if so, which ones? Are they part of a new kind of supra-regional connectivity? The project attempts to obtain appropriate clues for individual persons, especially by reconstructing biographies of the oldest monuments. New surveys and test excavations on barrows in Central Europe serve this purpose. In cooperation with the ROOTS Technical Platform and the ROOTS Dietary Subcluster, appropriate field activities will be designed and implemented. First activities will be carried out at Schneiderberg (Baalberge, Saxony-Anhalt), one of the oldest burial mounds in Europe.

‘Spitzes Hoch’, Latdorf (Sachsen-Anhalt). Example of one of the earliest burial mounds of Europe from around 3800 BCE (photo: Johannes Müller).

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Project by Johannes Müller johannes.mueller@ufg.uni-kiel.de