Kategorie: News
Could these be the oldest permanent structures in Central Europe?
Divers from the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and Archaeology (LDA) have recovered well-preserved pieces of wood from Lake Arendsee in the northern part of the state that are up to 10,500 years old.
The artifacts were verifiably worked by Mesolithic hunters and gatherers. Particularly noteworthy are a post approximately 1.60 meters high with clear signs of felling and working, as well as split planks up to 1.30 meters long that could indicate a former structure.
A lake that preserves the past
This exceptional preservation is made possible by a geological feature of Lake Arendsee. Unlike most inland bodies of water, which gradually silt up over the course of millennia, the lake’s bottom continues to sink slowly due to an underlying salt dome. As a result, the former Mesolithic shoreline now lies beneath only a thin layer of sediment at a depth of about 20 meters.
Conditions at the bottom are cool, largely oxygen-free, and thus exceptionally conducive to preservation. The latest finds are not the first of their kind for the lake: during earlier dives, divers discovered Neolithic fish traps, a High Middle Ages barge, and a Late Middle Ages dugout canoe.
Huts or something entirely new?
It remains to be seen whether the new finds are the remains of dwellings or previously unknown wooden structures. “In addition to the finds typically preserved from this period, such as stone tools or animal bones, our divers were able to recover spectacular pieces of wood, which have very rarely survived from this era,” explains state archaeologist Harald Meller. “The finds shed entirely new light on the Mesolithic period, for which traces of structures in central Germany have so far been known only in the form of soil staining.”
Project leader Marcel Weiß highlights the potential significance of the discovery: “If permanent structures or intensively designed living spaces had already existed 10,500 years ago - that is, 3,000 years before the arrival of the first farmers with their longhouses in Central Europe - this would have far-reaching consequences not only for our understanding of hunter-gatherers but also for the origins of modern cultural landscapes.”
Until now, the fundamental transformation of nature into a cultural landscape has been attributed to the first farmers who migrated to central Germany around 5,500 B.C.
Connection to the Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg
Chronologically, the find dates to the same era as one of Europe’s most famous Mesolithic graves: that of the so-called Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg. This is a burial site dating back approximately 9,000 years with exceptionally rich grave goods, which is currently the focus of a highly acclaimed special exhibition at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle. The new Arendsee finds thus provide further insight - this time architectural - into the same period and region, from which, until now, primarily burial and artifact contexts were known, but hardly any preserved structural timber.
Following the initial discovery in the spring of 2026, additional samples and individual artifacts were recovered to more precisely determine the extent and age of the site. In a second phase of the project, the team, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer IOSB-AST in Ilmenau, mapped the topography of the former shoreline using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) and high-resolution sonar scans.
“The support provided for underwater work using state-of-the-art technologies developed at the Fraunhofer Institute in Ilmenau is invaluable to archaeology,” said Sven Thomas, dive operations manager for the LDA Saxony-Anhalt at Lake Arendsee.
By precisely determining the locations of the sites, areas of interest can be narrowed down and future diving expeditions can be planned strategically.
Source and further information:
State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt (idw-online, press release)