Advanced technology discovered under Neolithic dwelling in Denmark

The construction of a railway crossing a farm on the Danish island of Falster has revealed a 5,000-year-old Neolithic site hiding cutting-edge technology: a stone-paved root cellar.

Archaeological researchers from the Lolland-Falster Museum and the University of Aarhus, Denmark, analyzed the site in a paper titled “Cobblestone Caves in the Stone Age? Archaeological Evidence of a Neolithic Underground Construction of Nygårdsvej 3 , Falster, Denmark”. published online in the journal Radiocarbon.

The emergence of the funnel beaker culture around 6,000 years ago caused the Scandinavian region to first turn to agriculture and domestic animals (sheep, goats, cattle), leading to a mode of more sedentary life. With the new way of life came the first construction of houses, megalithic tombs (dolmens), and landscape-altering structures in the region, a radical departure from the highly mobile hunter-gatherer strategy of the Late Mesolithic.

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Excavations at the Nygårdsvej 3 site revealed two phases of house construction. Both structures were built using a common Funnel Beaker Culture design (the Mossby type), where the interior posts support a large double-span roof. Phase one included 38 postholes, while phase two had 35, indicating that significant architectural planning was involved.

The structures’ soils consisted of compacted silt, a mixture of sand and clay. Loam floors date back much further in some parts of the world, but would have been cutting-edge technology for these Neolithic Danes. Globally, clay only became unfashionable for factories in the mid-20th century, and more than a billion people still use it in their homes today.

The location is well chosen as it sits on a slight rise, providing both a strategic view of the surrounding area and keeping it above the flood zone of nearby peatlands and streams.

More than 1,000 artifacts, including flint tools, pieces of pottery and two fossilized sea urchins, have been recovered from the site. These objects are concentrated in and around a paved stone feature below. It could not be determined whether the items had been placed there intentionally or whether they had simply ended up in the depression over time.

The most intriguing discovery at the site was the sunken item itself. The feature included carefully placed stones that researchers, ruling out other options, describe as being cave-like. If the cave’s interpretation is valid, it could represent a remarkable technological leap in resource conservation.

Underground temperatures are much more stable, isolated from major seasonal climatic variations. When used to store food, cellars keep things cool in the summer and prevent them from freezing in the winter. This would provide a huge benefit to an agricultural society by extending its ability to survive between harvests and through harsh winters.

Radiocarbon dating indicates that the cellar and the first phase of the house were built between 3080 and 2780 BC, with the second phase established sometime after 2800 BC.

In addition to the houses and cellar, seven rows of postholes were discovered, possibly the remains of an exterior fence. The fence could have been used for domestic animal breeding, landscape manipulation, or as a fortified defense against hostile humans or predatory animals.

Although the extent and function of the fence remains unclear based on current excavations, the dating of the holes has provided an entirely new enigma. Radiocarbon dating places the construction of the fence much earlier, between 3600 and 3500 BC.

Since the exterior post holes predate the houses by hundreds of years, their function has no relation to the houses themselves. Nevertheless, this reinforces the strategic value of the location for the inhabitants of ancient Falster.

Surprise discoveries, such as a root cellar in a Neolithic house, are an exciting part of any archaeological dig because they tend to generate more questions than answers. Future excavations at the site will seek to answer the questions raised by the Nygårdsvej cellar and give us a clearer picture of life in the early funnel beaker culture in Denmark.

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