Peoples through space and time Archaeology in Germany 09.05 ...

A treasure found in 1979 in direct proximity to the bath house of the strategically important
Weissenburg fort in Bavaria gives testimony to the catastrophic situation that existed along the Rhaeto
Limes during the Middle of the 3 rd century A.D.
Originally buried in a wooden crate, the treasure consisted of 114 artifacts, including 18 statuettes of
Roman gods, 10 additional figurative bronzes, 11 silver votive panels, four dress helmets, 18 bronze
fittings and 33 iron tools.
According to the artifacts found, they represented booty from robberies of various Roman house
shrines, a temple and a military camp’s banner shrine which Germanic marauders buried and for
unknown reasons never recovered.
Excavated Booty in Hagenbach
The pillaging of Roman provinces around 275 B.C. by Germanic marauding bands is exemplified by a
site discovered in a gravel quarry near Hagenbach, situated on the upper Rhine between the legion
camps of Mainz and Strasbourg. The site marks the place were the Alemanni lost their rich booty on
their return from Gaul to Germania while crossing the Rhine.
Beside a large number of damaged bronze and silver vessels, jewelry, weapons and tools, the find
included 129 silver votive panels. The names engraved on the panels and the style of ornamentation of a
majority of the artifacts point to South-Western France as their place of origin. The markedly
fragmented state of this booty shows that the precious metals such as bronze and iron were exclusively
robbed for their material worth.
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From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages
From an archaeological perspective, the period of transition from the 4 th to 5 th century was a dynamic
time alternating between continuity and breaks, characterized by the end of the Roman Empire in the
West and the rise of the Frankish kings.
Large graveyards like the one in Krefeld-Gellep were used continuously until the 7 th century. In areas
with a verifiable population continuity, major breaks tend to be rare. In other areas, such as in
Northeastern Germany, entire regions were deserted.
Archaeologists have discovered that various population groups were highly mobile in the 5 th century in
Southern Germany, resulting in short-term settlements and a mixing of foreign elements.
New findings and modified approaches to the continuously growing amount of uncovered material have
ultimately led to an exemplary explanation of the development of Germanic tribes in the Early Middle
Ages, who under the leadership of the Frankish kings determined Germany’s further history.
Germanic Settlements
The smallest Germanic settlement was the small family-run farm. Hamlets or villages with more than 25
small farmyards were rare. The farms were constructed according to the same plan: the main building
was mostly enclosed and represented combined living quarters and animal shelter.
Other buildings of different functions surrounded the main building, such as stilted houses for storage or
pit houses for housework. Wells of various construction styles served the farm with fresh water.
Separated zones for technical facilities such as limework ovens and tanning pits were found in larger
settlements.
In the past few years our knowledge of Germanic settlements has greatly increased due to
comprehensive excavations particularly in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg, where more
than 100 partly large-scale archaeological examinations of settlements from the 1 st to 5 th century have
been carried out since 1990.
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