During this period, which archaeologists refer to as the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), the shaman of Bad Dürrenberg also lived – and there is evidence that people were already present on the shores of Lake Arendsee.
Due to a geological peculiarity of the lake, the traces of the settlements of that time, as well as the former shoreline, are exceptionally well preserved: unlike other inland bodies of water, which slowly silt up over millennia, the bottom of Lake Arendsee is slowly sinking due to geological processes involving an underlying salt dome. As a result, the Mesolithic finds now lie beneath a thin layer of sediment at a depth of approximately 20 meters and are exceptionally well preserved.
“Besides the usual finds from this period, such as stone tools or animal bones, our divers were able to recover spectacular pieces of wood, which have very rarely survived from this era,” explains state archaeologist Harald Meller. “The finds shed a completely new light on the Mesolithic period, for which traces of buildings in Central Germany have so far only been known in the form of soil discolorations.” According to initial findings, a 1.60-meter-high post with felling marks and split boards up to 1.30 meters long could be remnants of former architectural structures.
“Whether we are looking at the remains of huts or other, previously completely unknown wooden structures is the subject of ongoing and future research. If permanent buildings or intensively cultivated living spaces already existed 10,500 years ago – that is, 3,000 years before the arrival of the first farmers with their longhouses in Central Europe – this would have far-reaching consequences not only for our understanding of hunter-gatherers, but also for the origins of modern cultural landscapes,” explains Marcel Weiß, project head for the LDA Saxony-Anhalt.