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Between 1974-1989, archaeological research took place near Eilsleben at a settlement of the first farmers in Central Europe, dating back 7,500 years. The settlement is among the largest of its time and lies on the northern periphery of the Linear Pottery culture. It offers a unique opportunity to study the interactions between the earliest farmers and the pre-existing hunter-gatherer population. New excavations, conducted since 2024 as a collaboration between the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt, the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and the Freie Universität Berlin, are also focusing on the question of whether the settlement was fortified early on.
Extensive excavations were carried out in Eilsleben between 1974 and 1989 by Dr. Dieter Kaufmann, then director of the State Museum of Prehistory. These excavations uncovered parts of an exceptionally rich settlement of the first farmers in Central Europe, belonging to the Linear Pottery culture (5500 to 4800 BC). With a back then estimated total area of 12 hectares, the settlement was among the largest of its time and lies on the northern periphery of the Linear Pottery world. It offers a unique opportunity to study the interactions between the earliest migrating farmers and the pre-existing hunter-gatherer population. Therefore, since 2024, archaeological investigations have been taking place again in Eilsleben as a collaborative project between the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt, the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and the Freie Universität Berlin. Initial findings have now been published in the renowned journal Antiquity (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10270).
For a long time, researchers debated whether agriculture and animal husbandry arrived in Central Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic period around 7,500 years ago through the migration of farmers or through the transfer of ideas. In recent years, archaeogenetic studies have supported the former model: they document a massive migration of people whose genes reveal an ancestry from Anatolia and the Aegean. These farmers settled on the fertile loess soils and pushed the resident hunter-gatherer societies of the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) into peripheral zones less suitable for agriculture. However, certain adoptions, such as in stone or antler tools, indicate close ties between the immigrants and the local population. The settlement of Eilsleben plays a special role here, as it is situated at the northernmost edge of the agricultural world, in a region that must have been ideally suited for exchange with surrounding hunter-gatherer communities.
The new investigations revealed well-preserved settlement deposits. This is an exception for early Neolithic sites in Central Europe and promises new insights into settlement structure and activity areas through scientific analyses such as archaeobotany, micromorphology, and sediment analysis. Furthermore, they shed new light on another distinctive feature of the settlement: it appears to have been fortified as early as the earliest Linear Pottery culture, essentially the earliest wave of migration. A rampart and ditch system enclosed the houses. Large-scale geomagnetic surveys revealed that the fortification and settlement are much larger than previously thought. Whether this fortification indicates confrontations with the pre-existing population or represents evidence of conflicts among the early farmers will be clarified by further research.
PD Dr. Laura Dietrich (laura.dietrich@praehist.uni-halle.de)
Laura Dietrich/Franziska Knoll/Henny Piezonka/Jörg Orschiedt/Mikko Heikkinen/Franz Becker/Erik Zamzow/Harald Meller, LBK outpost of Eilsleben: hunter-farmer encounters in the borderlands of Early Neolithic Central Europe. Antiquity, First View, pp. 1 – 7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10270
Eilsleben, geophysical plan of the settlement with excavation areas, house structures and fortificat ...
Copyright: LDA Sachsen-Anhalt & Martin-Luther Universität Halle, D. Kaufmann, M. Heikkinen, E. Zamzow, L. Dietrich, F. Becker
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