Divers recovered Mesolithic worked timbers up to about 10,500 years old from Lake Arendsee in Saxony-Anhalt: a post roughly 1.6 m high with felling marks and split planks up to 1.3 m long. Project leader Marcel Weiss says the remains could belong to permanent structures; if confirmed, they would reshape ideas about hunter-gatherers and cultural landscapes. Salt-dome subsidence helped preserve the wood, which lay about 20 m down. Whether it formed a building remains unknown. The lake has also yielded a 12.5 m medieval cargo barge.
Mesolithic worked timbers recovered from Lake Arendsee, Saxony-Anhalt
Key facts
- Divers recovered Mesolithic wooden posts and split planks dated to about 10,500 years ago from Lake Arendsee in Saxony-Anhalt.
- Lake Arendsee covers about 5.4 km² and reaches a maximum depth of approximately 25.6 m, not almost 50 m. The timbers were about 20 m below the surface beneath sediment.
- The assemblage includes a post about 1.6 m tall with traces of felling and working, plus split planks up to about 1.3 m long.
- The State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt led the work. State archaeologist Harald Meller said earlier Mesolithic buildings in central Germany were known mainly from soil discolourations left by decayed posts.
- Project leader Marcel Weiss said permanent buildings or intensively shaped living spaces of this age would change understanding of hunter-gatherers and the origins of cultural landscapes.
- Around 8500 BCE, central Europe was not yet farming; Linear Pottery farmers arrived around 5500 BCE and built timber longhouses.
- Lake Arendsee occupies a subsidence basin above a salt dome. Collapses recorded in 822 and 1685 CE and continuing subsidence helped submerge and bury ancient shoreline deposits.
- The lake has also yielded a Neolithic fish weir about 4,600 years old, a 12.5 m oak cargo barge dating to about 1265 CE that was raised in 2016, and a late-medieval dugout canoe. High-resolution sonar from an underwater robot is used to map the lake floor.
- At Star Carr in Yorkshire, a roughly 3.5 m-wide circular arrangement of split logs dates to about 9000 BCE and is cited as Europe's earliest known timber carpentry; it is better described as a platform than definitively as a house.
- Whether the Saxony-Anhalt timbers formed a building remains unknown. Further dives are needed, and movement in the poor visibility can stir up silt.
Sources
Mesolithic Lumber Recovered in Germany's Lake Arendseearchaeology.org
The pieces of wood include a five-foot post bearing felling marks, and split boards measuring up to about four feet long.
13: A historical photograph from the early 20th century ...researchgate.net
In 2003 a Neolithic wooden fishing fence structure was discovered in the Arendsee, a lake in the north of Sachsen-Anhalt (Germany). Situated at the northern ...
Remains of more than 10.000 years-old Mesolithic wooden ...nachrichten.idw-online.de
A wooden post approximately 1.60 meters high, found in Lake Arendsee, bearing traces of felling and working, could have been the supporting ...
Archaeologists recovered 10500-year-old worked wood ...timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Archaeologists recovered 10,500-year-old worked wood from 20 metres beneath Germany's Lake Arendsee, including a 1.6-metre post and 1.3-metre ...
Wood beneath German lake may reveal buildings ...phys.org
A wooden post approximately 1.60 meters high, found in Lake Arendsee, ling and working, could have been the supporting element of a Mesolithic ...
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