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Grinding stones are between the most important tools of the early farmers who settled Central Europe starting from 5500 BC. In recent years, depositions of such tools have been documented for the first time in Central Germany. These finds have now been examined within a cooperation project between the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. An article recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports examines the levels of meaning of the grinding stone depositions, which have connections to Neolithic ideas of time and life cycles.
The transition from hunting and gathering to a food-producing way of life with agriculture and livestock breeding is one of the most drastic transformation processes in human history. For the first time, humans are massively altering their environment by domesticating plants and animals. More stable and reliable food resources lead to population growth, but also to new problems. In crisis events, such as supply problems or conflicts between different groups, mobile hunters and gatherers can move to other areas. The Neolithic farmers were tied to their plot of land and bad harvests could lead to periods of famine. For the farmers of the Linear Pottery Culture, who migrated from Transdanubia into Central Europe starting from 5500 BC and the following Stroke Ornamented Pottery Culture, stockpiling and the equipment needed for food production were thus of great importance. Grinding stones played a particularly important role, as it is only this type of tool that makes it possible to efficiently process grain into flour and thus make it usable for human nutrition.
Neolithic grinding stones always consist of two functional parts: a lower part, the grinding slab, and an upper part, the handstone, with which the grain is milled. A cooperation project between the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology (LDA) Saxony-Anhalt and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Roberto Risch and Prof. Dr. Harald Meller is no looking into this long-ignored find group. Current results of these investigations have now been presented in an article in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.104998).
The importance of grinding stones for Neolithic people is also expressed in the ritual deposition of these devices. Structured depositions of grinding stones have so far been known primarily from France and Belgium. New discoveries have changed this in recent years. Two complexes of finds come from the surroundings of the Goseck circular enclosure in Saxony-Anhalt, which is considered one of the earliest solar observatories. However, the first find dates back even before the construction of this enclosure. In a Linear Pottery Culture longhouse that dates to between 5200 and 5000 BC, two grinding slabs had been deposited in a pit. Heavy use-wear speaks against a deposition with the purpose of preserving them for later re-use and in favor of a ritual act. This is even clearer with the second find from Goseck, which was dated between 4795 and 4696 BC by radiocarbon samples, contemporary with the solar observatory of the Stroke Ornamented Pottery Culture and found in its immediate vicinity. Three grinding slabs and two handstones lay in a pit below the skeletal remains of a 50-55 year old person. All tools were used, but preserved in different stages of wear. A third deposit was discovered in Sömmerda, in what is now Thuringia, near a Linear Pottery Culture house. Here, several grinding stones in different stages of wear were placed on top of each other in two layers within a pit.
Previous studies had linked deposits of grinding stones to the rhythm of cultivation and harvest, fertility and feasting. The results of the present studies also indicate a close connection to the lives of women as users of the devices and their perception of time. The researchers involved in the study conclude this from the similarly structured deposits, each of which contains grinding stones in different stages of wear and thus possibly symbolically depicting the cycle from production/birth to end of use/death.
“The results of the study reflect the high social value that these objects had and also lead us to believe that the core idea behind the deposition of the tools is the time expressed in the different stages of their “biography”. The grinding stones were mainly used by women. This could indicate references to cycles of birth, life and death in the depositions,” says lead author Erik Zamzow. Roberto Risch adds: “The intention behind the deposits is to represent a complex idea of time that goes beyond the rhythm of the annual harvests with which the grinding stones have previously been associated. The symbolism refers to the lives of certain women, because the shape of each grinding stone is the result of their daily work over years and decades“.
Roberto Risch
Department of Prehistory, UAB
Tel. +34 93 581 19 77
E-mail: Robert.Risch@uab.cat
Erik Zamzow, Marina Eguíluz Valentini, Mario Küßner, Roberto Risch, Grinding Stone Deposits of the Linear Pottery Culture in Central Germany. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.104998
https://www.emuseum-himmelswege.de/en/dig-deeper/the-goseck-site The eMuseum Himmelswege offers further information on the Goseck site
Fitting pair of the grinding stone deposit of Goseck circular enclosure
J. Soldevilla
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt
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Fitting pair of the grinding stone deposit of Goseck circular enclosure
J. Soldevilla
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt
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