Advanced technology discovered under Neolithic dwelling in Denmark

Railroad construction through a farm on the Danish island of Falster has revealed a 5,000-year-old Neolithic site hiding an advanced technology—a stone paved root cellar.

Archaeology researchers from the Museum Lolland-Falster, along with Aarhus University, Denmark, have analyzed the site in a paper, “Stone-Paved Cellars in the Stone Age? Archaeological Evidence for a Neolithic Subterranean Construction from Nygårdsvej 3, Falster, Denmark,” published online in the journal Radiocarbon.

The emergence of the Funnel Beaker Culture around 6,000 years ago brought the Scandinavian region’s first switch to agriculture and domesticated animals (sheep, goats, cattle), leading to a more sedentary lifestyle. With the new way of life came the region’s first construction of houses, megalithic tombs (dolmens), and landscape-altering structures, a huge shift away from the highly mobile hunter–gatherer strategy of the Late Mesolithic.

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

The floors within the structures were made of compacted loam, a soil mixture of sand and clay. Loam floors date back much further in some parts of the world but would be a cutting-edge technology to these Neolithic Danes. Globally, loam only went out of fashion for factory floors in the mid-20th century, and more than a billion people still use it in homes today.

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

More than 1,000 artifacts, including flint tools, pottery pieces, and two fossilized sea urchins, were recovered from the site. These items are concentrated in and around a sunken stone-paved feature. It was not possible to determine if the items were placed there intentionally or simply ended up in the depression over time.

The most intriguing discovery at the site was the sunken feature itself. The feature included carefully placed stones that the researchers, ruling out other options, describe as being like a cellar. If the cellar interpretation stands, it could represent a remarkable technological leap in resource preservation.

Temperatures underground are much more stable, insulated from the large swings of seasonal climate. When used to store food, cellars keep things cool in the summer and prevent them from freezing in winter. This would provide a tremendous benefit to an agricultural society by prolonging their ability to survive between harvests and through harsh winters.

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

In addition to the houses and cellar, seven rows of post holes were found, possibly the remnants of an exterior fence. The fencing could have been used in domestic animal farming, landscape manipulation, or a fortified defense from hostile humans or predatory animals.

While the extent and function of the fence remains unclear from the current round of excavation, the dating of the holes provided an entirely new puzzle. Radiocarbon dating places the fence construction much earlier, between 3600 and 3500 BC.

As the exterior post holes predate the houses by several hundred years, the purpose is unrelated to the houses themselves. Still, it reinforces the location as having a long-standing strategic value for the inhabitants of ancient Falster.

Surprise findings, like a root cellar in a Neolithic home, are an exciting element of any archaeological dig as they tend to generate more questions than answers. Future excavations at the site will seek to answer the questions raised from the Nygårdsvej cellar and give us a clearer picture of early Funnel Beaker Culture life in Denmark.

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