En jordgrav fra tidlig-neolitisk tid

A New Earth-Grave from the Early Neolithic Period 'Konens Høj' is the name of a natural sandbank which juts out in the flat meadowland west of Stubbe Lake in southern Djursland. The meadows were in Atlantic times part of a fjord, of which Stubbe Lake is the only remnant. In 1962, an exploratory trench revealed a Stone Age settlement layer here, and in 1963-1965 Kulturhistorisk Museum, Randers, uncovered an area of 350 sq.m in and around the settlement layer, collecting large quantities of potsherds and flint of the Early Neolithic, which still await study.The result of a C14-dating of a sample from a charcoal layer on the site is, however, available. This analysis (National Museum C14 Laboratory, K-923) yields a date 3310 ± 100 B.C. This is thus the earliest dated Neolithic settlement in Denmark. In the course of the investigation, a grave was uncovered (fig. 1) lying in a planed area which had been excavated in the settlement layer down to virgin soil.The floor of the grave was an almost horizontal, rectangular paving of limestone cobbles of varying size on virgin sand, measuring 3.50 m X 0.80 m and lying slightly off E-W. On each side of the paving, two parallel rows of stones had been laid with varying regularity, and at each end of the paving a pile of stones was found. At the east end of the grave a depression could be seen, and when the paving was removed, an oval pit was revealed under this depression and at the west end of the grave. The pits were situated with their long axes across the grave, this length corresponding to the width of the grave floor. The east pit extended about 1.20 m under the grave floor, while the west pit had a depth of only about 1 m (fig. 2 a-b). In each case flat stones had been wedged down from both sides, and a clear displacement away from the grave could be observed at the bottom of the pit. These pits can only be understood as foundations for vertical wooden gables which closed the inner grave at both ends, and it seems reasonab