The spherical vessel as a grave goods is stored directly next to the skull. The head looks a bit sunken, and the fingers and hand bones are porous. Otherwise the skeleton is well preserved, even the clasped hands over the pelvis can still be seen. In the neighboring grave, the body is less intact, but the teeth flash from the lower jaw. Patricia Costache is thrilled. The head of the excavation sees only the individual additions as a “little problem”. Because few comparative finds make dating more difficult.
Costache and her team from the archeology excavation company Farch have started uncovering two graves in Freiham. A few meters from the motorway entrance, hidden 20 centimeters under the ground in the Munich gravel. An extraordinary find, because skeletons are rarely found in excavations. Only one in 600 artifacts is a grave. For three days it is not clear which sexes were buried there and when, and what the cause of death was. It’s up to the anthropologists to find out – and they won’t come until the excavation is over. But on Wednesday evening you know: one of the two people was a man and the other person was a teenager.
And one more thing is certain: the orientation of the graves is atypical for late antiquity, to which they were initially assigned. Because deceased from this period look to the east, towards the rising sun. So these dead would be lying upside down – and a little bit crooked too. It is therefore possible that the graves are older than expected. And more Roman than Christian.
Finds from the Stone Age through the Bronze and Iron Ages to late antiquity
Local government officer Kristina Frank (CSU) is this Wednesday for the first time at an excavation. She feels a bit like Indiana Jones: digging in Freiham, she says, is like “a kind of treasure chest that you open”. A treasure chest that gives an insight into the past. That tells about the people who once lived and worked here. That allows conclusions to be drawn about their culture, customs and traditions.
Freiham, as we now know, is not a new settlement. At what is now the westernmost edge of Munich, where houses are currently sprouting up and around 30,000 people will be living in 15 to 20 years, settlers have actually always lived. Since 2005 there has been an almost uninterrupted search for historically valuable discoveries underground on the 126 hectare area between Bodenseestrasse, the Aubingen cemetery and the A99 motorway ring.
The location of the grave and the spherical vessel contained therein are precisely documented.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
In this dimension, it is a specialty across Germany. Around 11,500 archaeological finds have already been brought to light in almost 40 excavations in 17 years – a documentation of the 4500 year old history of the area. “The archaeologists have made finds from the Stone Age through the Bronze and Iron Ages to late antiquity, which is very rare and shows the continuity of settlement,” said the municipal officer. Cost point for the city since the beginning of the excavations: three million euros – only for public and urban areas in Freiham.
The scientists have repeatedly uncovered something spectacular. A few years ago they found a late Roman cemetery with 20 graves. The grave goods were particularly informative: two robe needles, one elaborately Roman, the other more simply Germanic. A reference to a transition to Christian-Bavarian burial. The scientists have also discovered individual graves from the Bell Beaker period around 2000 BC.
“The great thing about this large excavation site, however, is above all the numerous sites,” says Petra Kohler, who coordinates the archaeological work in Munich. “Because archeology needs comparison.” In order to know what was typical of an era where trade took place and houses were built, “very many” meaningful finds are important. For Kohler, every excavation is therefore also a “preservation of the ground monuments in documentary form”.
Rectangles that are reminiscent of a Roman temple
Freiham, explains the researcher, always remained attractive as a settlement area because the soil was fertile, water was easily accessible thanks to a low groundwater level and streams, and the climate was neither too hot nor too cold. It is understandable that the archaeologists have already found a lot of wells. And also dark “post holes”, in which wooden posts of houses used to be anchored. “We have unearthed references to ridge posts from the early Bronze Age around 2200 BC – and others 25 meters further that point to buildings from the Hallstatt period 600 years later.”
The researchers are also certain to have found documents for a building from the late Iron Age, the La Tène period: two rectangles reminiscent of a Roman temple, just made of wood instead of stone. The settlements, explains Petra Kohler, were probably only used for one or two generations and then, when the fields around them were depleted, hiked a few meters further. In this way, settlements from different epochs were superimposed in Freiham. It can be assumed that those were “not crooked huts” at the time, but rather stable buildings, built by people with a lot of carpentry experience. “Otherwise people wouldn’t have done this for so long.” There is evidence to date that all possible forms of ovens, as well as kilns for drying and smoking meat, grain and fruit.
With brushes, spatulas and other tools, 11,500 finds have already been uncovered in Freiham.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
The graves and urn fields testify when people lived in the area, depending on how they were buried. In the Early Bronze Age the dead were laid on their side with their legs drawn up, in the Late Bronze Age they were cremated. The dead from the Iron Age, on the other hand, lie on their backs. Bronze neck rings, bone combs, jewelry, clasps, small pearls as well as pots and all kinds of tools made of stone and metal were found near the graves and the houses.
The professionals can tell from the nature of the soil that archaeologically valuable clues or finds could be hidden in the soil. “Dark, bumpy spots with no shape are usually simply geological depressions,” explains excavation manager Costache. Structured, dark areas with a loose consistency, on the other hand, indicate possible excavation sites. These places are then shoveled, scraped with a trowel and finally the earth is carefully brushed away. “Graves are easy to spot,” says Kohler. “Because they are just the size of a person.” The skeletons and the spherical vessel discovered a few days ago come, once they have been adequately researched, in the State Anthropological Collection.
An outdoor exhibition on the property of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising on the corner of Wiesentfelser and Albert-Camus-Straße is currently showing which ground monuments have been found in Freiham so far.