Architecture and Settlement Dynamics in Central Germany from the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age

Abstract

The wealth of settlement evidence has supposed a decisive difference between prehistoric archaeology of the Mediterranean compared to that of Central Europe. This situation has changed substantially during recent years due to large scale rescue excavations carried out in central and eastern Germany. Individual houses as well as large settlement complexes have been systematically recorded and can now be dated to the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The catalogue of all ground plans discovered up to 2019 in the federal states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia has recently been published as a supplementary volume of the proceedings of the conference ‘Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Settlement Archaeology’, held in Halle (Saale) in October 2018. Based on the geographical distribution, shape, size, orientation, and dating of the more than 240 building ground plans, the present study examines the architecture and settlement development of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker communities, as well as of the Únětice complex, between the rivers Saale and Elbe. This analysis offers new insight into the way of life of the first full metalworking societies of central Germany from the 3rd and first half of the 2nd millennium bce, which so far have mainly been approached through their outstanding, but numerically limited, funerary remains and hoards.