Late Holocene landscape development around a Roman Iron Age mass grave, Alken Enge, Denmark

Sediments from the small lake Ilsø situated in the Illerup/Alken Enge Valley were studied in order to investigate past landscape development at the time of a probably ritual human mass burial following battle during the Roman Iron Age (ad 1–400). A pollen record from Ilsø and a number of other records from Jutland were combined using the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm to reconstruct local vegetation changes through the last 2,800 years. These methods were supplemented by studies of catchment-related geochemistry of the Ilsø lake sediments. The results show a marked reforestation event associated with a strong decrease in erosion levels at the very beginning of the first century ad, contemporaneous with the finds of human remains at Alken Enge. Comparison with a pollen record 10 km away and with those from other sites, reveals that this reforestation occurs unusually early and rapidly, and is an unparalleled development in a Danish context. We suggest that the major landscape changes at the beginning of the Roman Iron Age and forest cover for the next few centuries comprise a possible example of ritual control of local land-use

Improved Geoarchaeological Mapping with Electromagnetic Induction Instruments from Dedicated Processing and Inversion

Increasingly, electromagnetic induction methods (EMI) are being used within the area of archaeological prospecting for mapping soil structures or for studying paleo-landscapes. Recent hardware developments have made fast data acquisition, combined with precise positioning, possible, thus providing interesting possibilities for archaeological prospecting. However, it is commonly assumed that the instrument operates in what is referred to as Low Induction Number, or LIN. Here, we detail the problems of the approximations while discussing a best practice for EMI measurements, data processing, and inversion for understanding a paleo-landscape at an Iron Age human bone depositional site (Alken Enge) in Denmark. On synthetic as well as field data we show that soil mapping based on EMI instruments can be improved by applying data processing methodologies from adjacent scientific fields. Data from a 10 hectare study site was collected with a line spacing of 1–4 m, resulting in roughly 13,000 processed soundings, which were inverted with a full non-linear algorithm. The models had higher dynamic range in the retrieved resistivity values, as well as sharper contrasts between structural elements than we could obtain by looking at data alone. We show that the pre-excavation EMI mapping facilitated an archaeological prospecting where traditional trenching could be replaced by a few test pits at selected sites, hereby increasing the chance of finding human bones. In a general context we show that (1) dedicated processing of EMI data is necessary to remove coupling from anthropogenic structures (fences, phone cables, paved roads, etc.), and (2) that carrying out a dedicated full non-linear inversion with spatial coherency constraints improves the accuracy of resistivities and structures over using the data as they are or using the Low Induction Number (LIN) approximation

Supplmentary_Material – Supplemental material for Bathymetric control of Holocene spit migration in a lacustrine environment

<p>Supplemental material, Supplmentary_Material for Bathymetric control of Holocene spit migration in a lacustrine environment by Niels Emil Søe, Aart Kroon, Bent Vad Odgaard, Holger Lykke-Andersen and Søren Munch Kristiansen in The Holocene</p

Direct evidence of a large Northern European Roman period martial event and postbattle corpse manipulation

New archaeological excavations at Alken Enge, Jutland, Denmark, have revealed a comprehensive assemblage of disarticulated human remains within a 75-ha wetland area. A minimum of 82 individuals have been uncovered. Based on the distribution, the total population is estimated to be greater than 380 individuals, exclusively male and predominantly adult. The chronological radiocarbon evidence of the human bones indicates that they belong to a single, large event in the early first century AD. The bones show a high frequency of unhealed trauma from sharp-edged weapons, which, together with finds of military equipment, suggests that the find is of martial character. Taphonomic traces indicate that the bones were exposed to animal gnawing for a period of between 6 mo and 1 y before being deposited in the lake. Furthermore, the find situations, including collections of bones, ossa coxae threaded onto a stick, and cuts and scraping marks, provide evidence of the systematic treatment of the human corpses after the time of exposure. The finds are interpreted as the remains of an organized and possibly ritually embedded clearing of a battlefield, including the physical manipulation of the partly skeletonized bones of the deceased fighters and subsequent deposition in the lake. The date places the finds in the context of the Germanic region at the peak of the Roman expansion northward and provides the earliest direct archaeological evidence of large-scale conflict among the Germanic populations and a demonstration of hitherto unrecognized postbattle practices.New archaeological excavations at Alken Enge, Jutland, Denmark,have revealed a comprehensive assemblage of disarticulated humanremains within a 75-ha wetland area. A minimum of 82 individualshave been uncovered. Based on the distribution, the total populationis estimated to be greater than 380 individuals, exclusively male andpredominantly adult. The chronological radiocarbon evidence of thehuman bones indicates that they belong to a single, large event in theearly first century AD. The bones show a high frequency of unhealedtrauma from sharp-edged weapons, which, together with finds ofmilitary equipment, suggests that the find is of martial character.Taphonomic traces indicate that the bones were exposed to animalgnawing for a period of between 6mo and 1 y before being depositedin the lake. Furthermore, the find situations, including collections ofbones, ossa coxae threaded onto a stick, and cuts and scraping marks,provide evidence of the systematic treatment of the human corpsesafter the time of exposure. The finds are interpreted as the remains ofan organized and possibly ritually embedded clearing of a battlefield,including the physical manipulation of the partly skeletonized bonesof the deceased fighters and subsequent deposition in the lake. Thedate places the finds in the context of the Germanic region at the peakof the Roman expansion northward and provides the earliest directarchaeological evidence of large-scale conflict among the Germanicpopulations and a demonstration of hitherto unrecognized postbattlepractices