A Neolithic stone burial chamber open to the sky

Deep in the Stadtwald of Gudensberg, a stone rectangular floor persists as a remnant of the Neolithic Wartberg culture. It is an above-ground burial chamber, a rare architectural choice for this culture in North Hesse. While other sites of the Wartberg culture, such as the gallery graves of Züschen and Calden, were partially sunken or covered by mounds, the structure here is unique because of its shape and purely above-ground construction.

Constructed between 3500 and 3000 BC, the chamber measures 10 meters in length and 5 meters in width. Its walls are built from processed stones of quartzite and basalt, set into a structure that was presumably covered with wood. Two open front chambers lead into the main space.

Settlements of the Wartberg culture are located less than one kilometer away on the Gudensberger Bürgel and Güntersberg. The floor of the burial site was paved. When archaeologists Gero von Merhart, Otto Uenze, and W. Kersten excavated the site in 1932, they found only a few skeletal remains in the form of bone fragments, some fragments of cups, and two stone axes made of flint slate.

The small number of finds is explained by the above-ground construction and rapid decay after ritual use. Today, the artifacts that survived the centuries - the fragments of cups and the two stone axes - are held in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel. The site in the forest remains a study in contrast, positioned just west of a much later mound grave from around 1300 BC.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons