Germany: Submerged Sites in the South-Western Baltic Sea and the Wadden Sea 97

Germany: Submerged Sites in the South-Western Baltic Sea 5 and the Wadden Sea Hauke Jöns, Friedrich Lüth, Svea Mahlstedt, Julia Goldhammer, Sönke Hartz, and Hans-Joachim Kühn Abstract the presence of large and well-preserved Only in the last 20 years have German research assemblages of stone, antler and wooden arte- institutes and heritage agencies turned their facts and other cultural features, comparable attention to the investigation of the settlements to the better-known underwater settlements of that were inundated by rapid sea-level rise Denmark. Research within the framework of during the Holocene. Over 142 sites have been the SINCOS project has led not only to the recorded so far, the majority on the Baltic discovery of numerous Stone Age settlements coastline, and mostly of Late Mesolithic and but also to a high-resolution reconstruction of Early Neolithic date. Underwater excavations the changes in coastal palaeogeography asso- on the Baltic coast of sites such as Timmendorf- ciated with the Littorina transgression. It has Nordmole, Neustadt and Strande demonstrate also raised the profile of the submerged Stone Age as a significant feature of the cultural H. Jöns (*) heritage and demonstrated the value of and the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal need for multi-disciplinary collaboration. Research, Wilhelmshaven, Germany Fewer finds have been recovered on the North e-mail: [email protected] Sea coast, and this reflects the different envi- F. Lüth ronmental history of marine transgression, the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin, Germany greater thickness of marine sediments mask- e-mail: [email protected] ing the prehistoric land surface and the greater S. Mahlstedt technical challenges required to access it. Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research, Wilhelmshaven, Germany Most finds here have been disturbed, a notable e-mail: [email protected] exception being the Late Neolithic votive J. Goldhammer deposit of an aurochs at Hamburger Hallig. State office for Cultural Heritage Baden- The situation is also influenced by the legal Wuerttemberg, Gaienhofen-Hemmenhofen, Germany and structural requirements imposed on e-mail: [email protected] research and the protection of sites by the S. Hartz relevant authorities in the various federal Museum for Archaeology Schloss Gottorf, states: Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (Baltic Schleswig, Germany e-mail: [email protected] Sea), Schleswig-Holstein (North Sea and Baltic Sea) and Lower Saxony (North Sea). H.-J. Kühn State Archaeology Department of Schleswig- Holstein, Schleswig, Germany © The Author(s) 2020 95 G. Bailey et al. (eds.), The Archaeology of Europe’s Drowned Landscapes, Coastal Research Library 35, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37367-2_5 96 H. Jöns et al. Keywords (http://splashcos-viewer.eu/) (Fig. 5.1). Almost all Littorina transgression · Mesolithic · these sites are shallow-water finds (<10 m). Some Neolithic · SINCOS project · Submerged were chance discoveries by divers, many were landscapes · Submerged sites · Underwater discovered by systematic research-led investiga- archaeology tions. Collaboration with offshore development projects has taken place in recent years through Environmental Impact Assessments conducted in advance of industrial development. Notable 5.1 Introduction examples are the construction of a tunnel between Lolland in Denmark and Fehmarn in Germany, Germany, like neighbouring Denmark, has both a and the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which passes Baltic and a North Sea coastline, each with very along the Baltic seabed from NW Russia to NE different records of marine transgression and Germany. Both projects have involved geophysi- submerged archaeology. Systematic underwater cal and geological investigations of submerged archaeological investigations have focussed landscapes but so far without significant discover- mainly on the Baltic coast, and though they began ies of archaeological material except on the later than in Denmark, they have produced infor- Danish side of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel (Enters mation of equivalent interest and importance, et al. 2015; Sørensen 2016). mostly of Late Mesolithic or Early Neolithic date. The beginnings of underwater investigations Currently there are 142 sites in the SPLASHCOS of submerged Stone Age sites in Germany go Viewer, the majority (100) from the Baltic coast back to the nineteenth century, when occasional Fig. 5.1 Map of Germany showing distribution of underwater sites, key names and other places mentioned in the text. Site information from the SPLASHCOS Viewer http://splashcos-viewer.eu/. Drawing by Moritz Mennenga 5 Germany: Submerged Sites in the South-Western Baltic Sea and the Wadden Sea 97 Mesolithic finds brought up by offshore dredging water Mesolithic sites of Denmark (see Bailey were first recognised, and to closer collaboration et al., Chap. 3, this volume). of geologists and archaeologists in the mid- On the North Sea coastline, underwater sites twentieth century, who began to unravel the are fewer and mainly comprise isolated finds history of Postglacial sea-level rise in the Baltic recovered by chance following exposure of bur- and its relationship to the Mesolithic-Neolithic ied material by storms. This difference is largely transition (Jöns et al. 2007). However, systematic due to the very different history of marine inun- underwater research did not begin until the 1990s, dation and sediment accumulation as compared inspired by the publication of the impressive to the Baltic Sea and different conditions for the results of work going back to the 1970s in neigh- exposure and discovery of underwater material bouring Denmark (e.g. Skaarup 1995) and by (Jöns 2010). the culmination of research on the pile dwellings In this chapter we summarise the changing of Lake Constance in southern Germany coastal geography and environment associated (Schlichtherle 1997). The earliest investigations with sea-level rise since the Last Glacial of submerged sites took place at the western end Maximum (LGM), outline the archaeological of the Mecklenburg Bight on the Baltic coastline context of the underwater finds, synthesise the of Schleswig-Holstein (Harck 1985). archaeological results of underwater research An important boost to underwater research with reference to key excavations, examine the followed German reunification in 1990. Before variable conditions of underwater archaeological then, the Baltic coastline of Mecklenburg-West preservation and outline the prospects and Pomerania had been part of East Germany (the challenges for future discoveries. German Democratic Republic) since 1949 and civilian underwater research was prohibited. After 1990, investigations began to reveal under- 5.2 Palaeogeography and Sea- water Mesolithic and Neolithic finds. These Level Change discoveries involved close cooperation between archaeological museums, heritage authorities The German coastline today is c. 3500 km, with and geological research institutes, a collabora- c. 1500 km of coastline along the Wadden Sea tive network that culminated in the multi-disci- facing the North Sea and c. 2000 km on the Baltic plinary SINCOS (Sinking Coast) project funded (Policy Research Corporation 2009).1 It is bor- by the German Research Foundation (DFG) dered by three states—Lower Saxony on the from 2002 to 2010 (Harff and Lüth 2007, 2011). North Sea coast, Schleswig-Holstein with both a This project with its collaboration between spe- North Sea and a Baltic coastline and Mecklenburg- cialists in geology, archaeology, palaeobotany, West Pomerania bordering the Baltic—and it archaeozoology, dendrochronology and palaeo- receives drainage from four major rivers: the Ems climatology resulted in systematic investigation near the Dutch border and the Weser and the Elbe of submerged shorelines and archaeology Rivers, all draining into the North Sea, and the over wide areas of the Mecklenburgian and Oder River, which forms the frontier with Poland Pomeranian Bights and the discovery of some 50 and flows into the Baltic. new underwater archaeological sites (see Jöns Both coastlines have a history of highly 2011; Hartz et al. 2011). This must count as one dynamic changes associated with Late Pleistocene of the largest concentrations of underwater and Early Holocene climate change and sea-level prehistoric sites in Europe discovered as a result of research-led systematic exploration. These discoveries, along with excavations at some of 1 Most sources give a length of 2389 km, but these figures the newly discovered sites, have produced evi- are notoriously vulnerable to variation because of fractal effects, and we prefer the larger figure here because it is dence that is comparable, in terms of quantity given in a document specifically concerned with the and quality of preservation, to the famous under- impact of sea-level rise on the modern coastline. 98 H. Jöns et al. rise, with marked differences between the North sheets retreated and the downward pressure on Sea and the Baltic at the broad scale, and differ- the crust and mantle was released, the land ences at a regional scale along the Baltic coast- beneath slowly rebounded, and the forebulge line between Mecklenburg Bay in the west and subsided. Because of the time lag in the response Rügen Island in the east, and along the Wadden of the crust to these changes in loading, these Sea between North Frisia and East Frisia (see processes of uplift and subsidence continued Fig. 5.1). The nature of these palaeoenvironmen- long

Load more