Outstanding Preservation Under an Ancient Surface

The site is located in Bavaria where the Anlauter valley meets the Schwarzach valley on one of the main intersections for traffic travelling north/south and east/west. It is approximately 1.5. to 2 km South-West of Kinding, a place which has always been valued as a convenient traffic junction due to being situated on the confluence of three rivers, the Altmuehl, the Anlauter and the Schwarzach. The three river valleys are up to around 150m deep and cut through the Frankish mountains. They have been known and used as long distance traffic routes since time immemorial. Even today, main traffic arteries cross at Kinding from Beilngries-Berching to Nuremberg, to Greding further in the North, through the Altmuehl valley to Kelheim on the Danube and South to the Ingolstadt basin.

Topographical Overview. Red: Indicates the Hallstatt period settlement in the area to the north west. The mountain ridge is in the centre of the map. This is the location of the Schellenberg hilltop settlement which overlooks the valley. Blue: Further settlement sites (Excavated by ProArch, Ingolstadt). The small red area in the South indicates the location of another Hallstatt period excavation, the grave mound necropolis of Kinding-Ilbling.

As we can see, the location of the settlement is extremely convenient for travel. The evident advantages of the settlement's situation are increased still further by the particular topography of the area. An insular, tapered mountain spur dominates the area and overlooks this section of the valley. It is no wonder that the Schellenburg hilltop fort was built on this promontory. It was fortified with a circular enclosure and recently made accessible via an archaeology trail. Before the excavation discussed in this article was carried out, only small sections of the fort had been investigated and it had only produced materials from the urn field culture period.

The modern excavations mapped in the topographical overview all returned clear evidence of Hallstatt settlements. Further excavations carried out in the Anlauter and Schwarzach valleys (not shown on this map) also yielded finds from the Hallstatt period. All this evidence points to there having been an unusually large Hallstatt period settlement in this area.

The "Enkering-Gatzaecker" Hallstatt settlement site itself is situated on the valley's flood plain which is regularly submerged when the rivers flood. When this happens, alluvial clay deposits cover an ancient surface which contains Hallstatt period features. The surface contains a great deal of scattered Hallstatt period ceramics, bone fragments, charcoal etc. Unfortunately, only small sections of this surface could be investigated and sampled in any detail. Most of the ancient surface was removed mechanically as the archaeological features only became conspicuously visible underneath this layer against light-coloured gravel and alluvial clay. These circumstances account for the unusually high number and excellent condition of the preserved posts, buildings, trenches, ditches and fences on the site. Posts in particular are normally extensively decayed or damaged through farming activity. On this site we were able to recover almost all of them.

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