Kosel, neue Informationen zu einem altbekannten wikingerzeitlichen Bestattungsort

Bioarchäologische Analysen der menschlichen Skelettreste aus Kosel-Ost

Resumé

between
the landscapes of Angeln and
Schwansen. In the Viking Age it was part
of the border region between the Saxonian
and the Slavic cultures in the South and
the Scandinavian culture in the North. In
the context of a project supported by the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ›Frühgeschichtliche
und mittelalterliche Besiedlung
von Angeln und Schwansen‹, two Viking
Age settlements (9th/10th century) and
a burial site (c. 930 – 975 AD) have been
excavated between 1983 and 1993.
In 2019, the author carried out the first
analysis of the highly fragmented human
skeletal remains from the burial site of Kosel-
Ost for her dissertation project within
the SFB 1070 RessourcenKulturen, project
B 06. The following article summarises
the first results: in Kosel-Ost both men
and women, as well as children and adults
were buried. Based on the archaeological
record few child burials had been identified
but could now be complemented with
additional cases. An evaluation and contextual
classification of individual burials,
based solely on the archaeological data, is
complex for Kosel-Ost. The consideration
of singular aspects, such as the presence or
absence of burial mounds, is not sufficient,
to approach the complex burial reality. A
bioarchaeological approach that combines
archaeological and osteological data offers
new perspectives.
An assessment of dental pathologies revealed
that varying dietary habits regarding
carbohydrate enriched foods possibly
existed. This was demonstrated by the occurrence of dental caries which is limited to and significantly correlates with individuals buried under burial mounds. Furthermore, differences in burial customs were re-evaluated on the basis of the osteological results.