Archaeological sources are not only of interest for periods with few or no written sources. Documents, records, chronicles and historic images from the Middle Ages and the modern period are often highly tendentious or give information only on certain aspects of human life. Large areas of everyday life, for example, can only be rediscovered through material remains. Even in cases where there is good written evidence, archaeological sources are an important supplement to our understanding of historical circumstances: they are an ‘archive in the ground’. While it is generally uncontroversial that old documents and written materials should be preserved, the records of the past that are hidden in the ground are in acute danger of destruction.
The Conservation Officers for Mediaeval Archaeology are responsible for certain individual sites and above all for the cities of Magdeburg and Halle. A characteristic of cities is that they are under special pressure to change, though the settlem ...
The Law of the State of Saxony-Anhalt for the Protection of Historic Monuments sets out as one of the core tasks of the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology that archaeological monuments are to be identified, have their location noted precisely, and be recorded in a list. To find them, four methods of archaeological surveying are used: 1. Aerial survey, 2. Lidar (airborne laser scanning), 3. Field survey, and 4. Geophysical survey methods.
Geoarchaeology (archaeopedology) is concerned with soil and the phenomena that can be observed in it, in order to learn about the human influences and the interactions between humans and the environment in prehistoric and historic times. Environmental conditions have always been essential in determining the possibilities for human activity. For example, the yield of crop-farming was substantially dependent on the fertility of the soils, and already in prehistoric times the economic prosperity of individual regions was closely tied to the raw materials available in each region.
Through the effects of their actions, humans have significantly altered the landscape. Frequently travelled routes and crop-planting both led to extensive erosion in the soil, which can be identified in the terrain in the form of hollow ways, colluvial deposits at the foot of slopes, and in riverbeds as alluvial loams (Auelehme). The central German loess soils were seriously affected by soil erosion and ...
The discipline of archaeobotany is the investigation of plant remains that are found both in archaeological excavations and in naturally occurring lakebeds and bogs, with the aim of researching the history of flora, vegetation patterns and agriculture. The plant remains include, for example, pollen grains, carbonised or uncarbonised seeds and fruits, or carbonised or uncarbonised fragments of wood. In sediments that are or have been dried out, only carbonised or mineralised plant remains survive. In sediments that have been permanently moist, like wells or latrines, or in a milieu rich in heavy metals, evidence of plants may survive both as carbonised and uncarbonised remains.
Plants have always been an important basis of human nutrition. Since the start of the neolithic period, humans have grown and harvested plants and prepared them for food. The remains of plants that were produced in this way were disposed of in the ground with the rest of the settlement’s refuse. For that reas ...
Animal bones and teeth are among the most common finds in archaeological excavations. To identify them and assess their cultural significance is the responsibility of the section for Archaeozoology. Often the Archaeozoology section is called on during excavations that are already underway, when it is necessary to evaluate finds, including animal bones, in situ after they have been uncovered. However, the greater part of the work takes place in the laboratory, because many bone fragments can only be identified by comparison with the corresponding part of a modern animal skeleton.
The zoological analysis of the finds includes identifying their anatomical position and the species to which they belong. In addition, other data are recorded, for example information about the age and sex of the animals, their size and health, anomalies such as dental problems (ill. 1), changes caused by disease, as well as any signs that the bones were worked, cut or hit. In the case of paired bone-types, t ...
