Borremose

The Borremose is an extensive Danish peat bog in western Himmerlands, in the north of Jutland. It is known for its important archaeological finds. The Moor is located about five miles southeast of downtown Aars in the community Vesthimmerland. It has from southwest to northeast a stretch of three kilometers and is up to one kilometer wide.

Archaeological findings

The refuge

In Borremose and its surroundings significant archaeological finds from the Nordic Bronze Age and the Iron Age were made. In the south of the bog have been excavated in the 1930s and 1940s, the Borremose Fortress (Danish Borremose Fæstningen ), the BC was in use during the period of 300 BC to 100. It is the largest known installation of Jutland from this period. The so-called refuge in Borremose was on a small island that was surrounded by swamp and bogs created. The oriented in north-south direction island was about 150 m long and 80 to 100 m wide. Your enclosure consisted of two ditches and a rampart. A trench was between the island and the dry land in the southeast, where the bog is narrowest. Here one found on the moor soil, originally undoubtedly covered by water, a ford. It consists of a patch of fist-sized or larger stones. Several centuries later you have created on the ford a regular way dam, at the same time with a village. The other trench was dug on the outer side of the island. It is a flat-bottomed Sohlgraben. It differs from subsequent ring walls that have a V-shaped ditch. It was 1.50 to 2.50 m sunk into the gravel outside the island and heaped the earth worked out as Wall on the inside. Since the width of the trench was 5 to 6 m, stand for the Wall a considerable amount of gravel available. The distance between the rampart and the outside of the trench was from 8 to 10 m and the height difference between Wall crest and the bottom of the trench about 4 to 5 m. Whether the wall was fortified with palisades, could not be clarified.

When the excavation was found on the floor of the trench a number of short tapered oak pegs. This Europe encountered approach protection (a type of Cheval de Fries) includes but is not necessarily a fortification use of the island back, even places of worship were secured in this way. At a cult refer the bog bodies that have been sacrificed in the early Iron Age. In the excavation of the moat, which was filled over time in alternating layers with waste, peat and gravel abgerutschtem, you could see that the system had been used in the first period of its existence only in shorter periods of time. On the floor lay scattered fragments of pottery and other stuff, and over long distances was found almost nothing. The bottom layer was clearly deposited during temporary stays. Next up in the ditch was a cultural layer with thousands of fragments of pottery, dating from the 1st century BC.

For some early earthworks consisting of successively formed individual mutually superimposed long pits, a defense function can be excluded. This construction is, however, in addition to the continuous Grabenzug, so that the existence of earthworks without defense character may be considered secured.

Raising the bar

A certificate of survey work that preceded the earthworks in Borremose, puts a 1.35 m long bar made ​​of oak, which terminates at one end with a button and is tapered at the other end. It is divided by alternately convex and concave arches carved on one side in eight units of 16.5 cm length.

The village

The best impression of Jutland village of the early Iron Age can be purchased in Borremose. Here the 1st century BC became a village created on the spot where the so-called refuge had passed. 22 House residues and a paved road were excavated. The houses were not occupied at the same time, as some of them are partially covered by others. The buildings are all oriented east-west along the road that led to a house built of stone causeway to the mainland across the moor away. The road across the moor was 70 m long and 3 m wide and was built from a dense and carefully laid pavement of fist-sized and larger stones. The houses are of different sizes, but the same design. The largest was 23 m long and 6 m wide, the smallest just as wide and half as long. All had meter-thick sod walls and a roof made ​​of heath sods, who was born inside of two rows of posts. In the western part there was the living area, in the east of the barn.

One of the houses had been burned in ancient times and was covered by a layer of ash, so lain like 2000 years ago. The house was 13 meters long and 6 meters wide. Around the house floor plan, with the exception of the west end, were located on the inside of heavy foundation stones. On she joined inside a flat patch on. In the middle of the floor, the rotgebrannte clay plate of the fireplace was carved with two circular grooves, the one on the edge and the other six inches to the inside. In the middle of two longitudinal walls of the house were two stone pavement, where the charred wood of the doors has been demonstrated. In other ruins also fire doors were found.

The bog bodies

In the central area peat cutters found in the years 1946-1948 three bog bodies ( called Borremose I, II and III ) and some extant garments. In contrast to previous findings, they were immediately investigated professionally and provided a wealth of scientific knowledge. The north behind a narrow threshold to the Borremose subsequent Rævemose (Fuchs Moor ) is the location of the cult boiler Gundestrup, a central finding from the European Iron Age.