Iron Age Square Enclosures in Rhineland

Extract

Banked and ditched rectangular burial enclosures, called ‘Grabgärten’ (grave garden, literally) by the local folk, are found frequently in the southern Rhineland, with distribution centred on the south east Eifel, the Rhine-Moselle junction and the northern part of the Hunsriick mountains. All examples known to us up to the time of writing are plotted on the map (FIG. I).

Within these enclosures are found incineration burials, either in urns, pits or stone cists made of schist slabs, or simply a scatter of bones in a pit. In some cases post holes which have been found may belong, by analogy with finds in Champagne, to mortuary houses, cult stelae or the like. Chronologically, the enclosures in the Rhineland fall partly in the late La Tène period, but the majority are early Roman Imperial in date. Inasmuch as the origin of these enclosures, due to the paucity of data, is still unclear, it is not possible to comment on that aspect of the question.

In the fifties of the last century attention was paid to these earthworks for the first time by von Cohausen, though he misinterpreted them as Roman fortifications. Half a century later, R. Bodewig recognized that the ‘Grabgärten’ which he excavated in the Koblenz municipal forest were flat graves, and he contrasted them with the round barrows which often accompanied them. He considered them to be the individual family burial plots of the Treveri, a view which the present writers support?