Green energy projects are all about the future.<\/p>\n
But a new wind farm in Germany headed in the opposite direction<\/strong>. <\/p>\n Workers excavating in the area between Ahlum and Dettum expected the usual empty soil. But they hit a time capsule of sorts instead.<\/p>\n Centuries of artifacts had been lying just under the topsoil. It was evidence of ancient rituals and elite wealth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We have to change what we thought we knew about the region’s history. Who actually lived here?<\/p>\n Wind turbines found the perfect home<\/strong> on the breezy slopes of Lower Saxony. But before they could move in, state archaeologists had to do their standard checks.<\/p>\n Suddenly, things weren’t so standard anymore.<\/p>\n They did not expect a hoard of artifacts that would end up becoming a puzzle to solve<\/strong>. <\/p>\n The site turned out to contain layers of different eras of history.<\/p>\n First to be discovered were two massive longhouses. They were dated to the Linear Pottery culture from the early Neolithic period 7,500 years ago<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The next layer jumped to the Late Roman and Migration era of the 4th and 5th centuries CE. Here, archaeologists found ritual pits and intact dog burials. <\/p>\n One of the most fascinating finds was a bone comb with three layers<\/strong>. It was decorated with concentric circles with bronze rivets to hold it together.<\/p>\n But none of these things was the source of the mystery. This had to do with two more distant ages.<\/p>\n Researchers came across an archaeological jackpot<\/a> in the middle of the artifact layers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It was a cache of wealth so elite that it’s a wonder it was never reclaimed. It was clearly not an accidental stash. Someone was deliberate in their efforts to conceal it.<\/p>\n The list of artifacts rivals a royal vault<\/strong>. But a prehistoric one. <\/p>\n They found two heavy bronze neck collars and two coiled arm spirals. A long, decorative disc-headed pin for fastening garments also came out of the ground.<\/p>\n But none of these was the showstopper. This item was a larger-than-life necklace of<\/strong> 156 Baltic amber beads<\/strong>. Its well-preserved condition is notable in itself.<\/p>\n The haul is a record-breaker for the region, according to the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments<\/a> (available in German).<\/p>\n But it’s the origin of the amber that’s confounding researchers<\/strong>. It indicates an extensive, wealthy trade network extending from the northern coasts.<\/p>\n But this land was a frontier in those days, a literal prehistoric no-man’s-land. How could a treasure end up buried here without being returned for?<\/p>\n What kind of society could afford to just leave it behind<\/strong>?<\/p>\n This is the ultimate question behind the discovery, and the answer is from 3,300 years ago. The time was the Bronze Age between 1500 and 1300 BCE. <\/p>\n Other finds have been made from that era<\/a>, but few as significant as this one<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The people who buried this treasure were part of a highly sophisticated, deeply interconnected European elite.<\/p>\n They did not live in a primitive, isolated vacuum. Those 156 Baltic amber beads prove they held power over immense trade routes<\/strong> running from the northern seas straight into Central Europe.<\/p>\n Owning neck collars and intricate arm spirals was the ultimate status symbol.<\/p>\n Archaeologists believe this specific ridge was a prominent landscape marker<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It was a sacred, visible high point in a prehistoric borderland.<\/p>\n This elite culture used the hill to cache their most valuable possessions<\/strong>, perhaps as a ritual offering or a safe box during turbulent times.<\/p>\n Today, we look at these exact same wind-swept ridges and see the perfect spot to build state-of-the-art green energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n It is incredible to think that 3,300 years ago, a forgotten civilization decided this was the perfect place<\/a> to mark their power<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Green energy projects are all about the future. But a new wind farm in Germany headed in the opposite direction. Workers excavating in the area between Ahlum and Dettum expected the usual empty soil. But they hit a time capsule of sorts instead. Centuries of artifacts had been lying just under the topsoil. It was … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"wind","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"At first, it seemed like the perfect site for a wind farm\u2014until they uncovered a fascinating treasure buried by a lost civilization 3,300 years ago.","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How a routine archaeology check ended up uncovering the past<\/h2>\n
A deliberately buried fortune that was never reclaimed<\/h2>\n
The European elite: Wealth in bronze and power<\/h2>\n
Bronze was the high-tech currency of the era<\/h3>\n