Added January 16, 2002. Updated August 19, 2008, 14:01 hours.
This page will be updated occasionally
to add and revise information.
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Version 1.10
By
Maximilian O. Baldia
(Copy Right © 2002 – August 19,
2008. All rights reserved)
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The purpose of this text is to provide a general overview of the culture and is intended as a resource for students and teachers of European Archaeology.
The type-site Hornstaad is located on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) in Bavaria, S. Germany. The “lake dwelling” of Hornstaad-Hörnle I was excavated from 1983 – 1993. The group consists of two sites at Hornstaad (Site I and III) and a few other sites.
Based on tree-ring dates, village construction at Hornstaad-Hörnle I began at 3915 cal. BC. Hornstaad III construction began only slightly later. The latest tree-ring dates suggest a time after 3980 cal. BC at Gaienhofen-Untergarten. Therefore, one may assume an existence from ca. 3950-3800 cal. BC.
The Horrnstaad group has been seen as chronologically later than the Lengyel-related Mönchshöfen and Aichbühl “cultures”. However, the group is also sometimes included with Late Mönchshöfen.
The pottery from Hornstaad-Hörnle I is undecorated and has an S-profile. It includes funnel beaker-like pots, occasionally with impressions around the bottom of the rim. There are also narrow-mouthed amphorae with knob-like grips or (hollow) lugs on the bottom third of the pot. Paired lugs occur on stubby pots with shirt, narrow neck. Pottery bottoms are flat. The Hornstaad pottery is distinguished from the succeeding Pfyn pottery, which is found at Hornstaad-Hörnle II.
The excavations yielded a copper disk similar to the Stollhof gold disk from Vienna, Austria, copper disks at Hlinsko (TRB II), Moravia, and perhaps similar disks from the TRB in Denmark. The copper source may be in the Inn River Valley, but isotope analysis is not entirely conclusive (cf. Höppner et al. 2005).
At Hornstaad-Hörnle, relatively small rectangular houses were built more or less in rows. House construction at the Hornstaad-Hörnle IA started at 3915 BC. Evidence of posts, outlining houses, does not exist, but based on the rectangular outlines left on the vegetation-fee shoreline, houses measured ca 9-7m : ca. 3.5 m. The small houses contrast with the longhouses of the LBK, Rössen and (early) Lengyel. The small size is thought to reflect a household belonging to a nuclear family. It is estimated that the town had ca. 40 houses that burned down while the original users were still living in them. Based on the houses size, the debris found around them, and the fact that they burned not too long after the village was constructed, it is thought that 200 – 240 people lived in the unfortified village (Dieckmann et al. 2001:32).
Hunting, fishing and wild fruit collection predominate at the expense of domesticated animals. However, domesticated grain was a significant part of the economy. Unlike the LBK, where Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) and Einkorn (Triticum moncoccum) predomininate, Hornstaad-Hörnle I has 68% durum wheat (Triticum durum/turgidum-Type). However, other sites, in Switzerland, S. and E. Bavaria (Cortailliod, Pfyn, and Pfyn-Altheim) show a similar ratio by 4000/3900 cal BC. Furthermore, durum wheat was the single most important staple. The short-lived village of Hornstaad-Hörnle I is estimated to have had 275kg of domesticated grain per single family house. Most curious is the fact that the different species of grain were found to have been stored separately.
Huge numbers of perforated limestone beads were excavated. They suggest a kind of mass production by the people of Hornstaad-Hörnle. Trade items from as far away as the Mediterranean and the Paris Basin were also find.
Biel, Jörg,
Helmut Schlichtherle, Michael Strobel and Andrea Zee (Eds.)
1998 Die Michelsberger Kultur
und ihre Randgebiete: Probleme der Entstehung, Chronologie und des
Siedlungswesens. Materialhefte zur Archäologie in Baden-Württemberg, 43,
Theiss, Stuttgart.
Billamboz, André
1998 Die
jungneolithischen Dendrodaten der Pfahlbausiedlungen Südwestdeutschlands als
Zeitrahmen für die Einflüsse der Michelsberger Kultur in ihrem südlichen
Randgebiet. In Jörg Biel et al. (Eds.) 1998:159-168.
Dieckmann, Bodo, Maier, Ursula and Vogt, Richard
2001 Hornstaad – Zur inneren
Dynamik einer jungneolithischen Dorfanlage am westlichen Bodensee. Neue
Ergebnisse der Archäologie, Botanik und Bodenkunde. (Hornstaad – the inner
dynamics of a later Neolithic lake-dwelling in the west of lake Constance. New results from archaeology, botany and pedology.) In Andreas Lippert et al.
2001:29-51.
Höppner, B., M. Bartelheim,
M. Huijsmans, R. Krauss, K.-P. Martinek, E. Pernicka and R. Schwab
2005 Prehistoric Copper Production in the Inn Valley (Austria), and
the Earliest Copper in Central Europe. Archaeometry 47, 2, 2005: 293–315.
Lippert, Andreas, Michael Schultz, Stephen Shennan und Maria
Teschler-Nicola (Eds.)
2001 Mensch und Umwelt während des Neolithikums
und der Frühbronzezeit in Mitteleuropa. Ergebnisse interdisziplinärer
Zusammenarbeit zwischen Archäologie, Klimatologie, Biologie und Medizin. Internationaler
Workshop vom 9.-12. November 1995 im
Archäologiezentrum Wien. (People and their Environment during the Neolithic
and the Early Bronze Age in Central Europe. Results of interdisciplinary
cooperation between archaeology, climatology, biology and medicine. International
workshop at Vienna Archaeological Centre, November 9-12, 1995.) Internationale
Archäologie - Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Symposium, Tagung, Kongress 2, Verlag Marie Leidorf 2001. Rahden/Westf.,
Germany
Schlichterle, H.
1998 Was sucht
Michelsberg in den Ufersiedlungen des Bodensees? In Jörg Biel et al. (Eds.) 1998:169-176.
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Please send comments or questions to Max Baldia.
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