Toftum near Horsens. A causewayed camp from th transition between Early an Middle Neolithic

Abstract

Toftum near Horsens. A causewayed camp from the transition between Early and Middle Neolithic

A new causewayed camp -the third from the Nordic Funnel Beaker culture- was excavated in 1976 at Toftum, 10 km east of Horsens in eastern Jutland. The camp is situated on a hill which is placed like a promontory between two bogs about 1 km north of Horsens Fjord.

The excavations, which covered 115 m on the west face of the hill, revealed 9 ditches placed in two parallel rows (fig. 1). The ditches run from S to N obliquely up over the incline and seem to be directed towards the centre of the hill. To the south they show a clear tendency to turn east along the south side of the hill.

The ditches vary from 11 to 24 min length, 2 to 5 min width and 0.8 to 2.5 min depth. The distance between the two rows is 5 to 7 m and the causeways between the ditches are 2.5 to 4.0 m wide (but between ditch VII and IX 13 m).

Trenches on the eastern side of the hill showed that there were ditches there too (at point 1 on the contour map fig. 1). This must be the eastern side of the camp, which gives an E-W diameter of 200 m. If we suppose an equivalent N-S diameter, the whole camp covers an area of 7½ acres.

Examination of the ditches revealed three kinds of deposit:

1) Naturally deposited sand in which slips from the sides, blown sand and water deposits could clearly be discerned. Only a few cultural deposits were found here.

2) Light homogeneous sand layers, clearly separate from the naturally deposited layers and which must have been deliberately placed. These layers contained large potsherd surfaces which in some cases could be assembled into a whole pot. In four places a whole pot of this kind was found spread out above a fist­sized stone in the otherwise almost stoneless sand.

3) True cultural layers, which were mostly coloured black by charcoal and often had a sticky consistency. Shells (oysters, cockles and mussels) were included in many places and strongly red-burned areas occurred at more spots. The deposits contained extremely large quantities of implements and flint waste, pottery, and in the shells, bones. The pottery occurred both in relatively entire form and as small pieces of various vessels.

The inner ditches were almost entirely filled with deposits of type 2 and 3. Only at the very bottom could naturally deposited sand occur (fig. 2). The lack of layers of type 1 must in these sandy surroundings mean that filling of the ditches began immediately after they were dug and very quickly. In these ditches there were also distinct traces of fire. This was most apparent at the southern end of ditch V, where a close stone packing covered a fire layer. The stones, which lay directly on the red-burnt and charcoal-filled sand, were blackened with soot and partly fractured, which suggests that they were placed there before the fire in the ditch had been extinguished.

The outer ditches were mainly filled by naturally deposited sand. Only at the top were there deposits of type 2 and 3. This must mean that the ditches were open for a while, before being covered with placed material. There thus seems to be a clear difference between the inner and outer ditches.

It could be demonstrated that the earth from the ditches had been laid up on the outside and possibly also on the inside.

No palisade behind the ditches could be demonstrated but as observations were made extremely difficult by extreme drought, there is no certainty on this matter.

The finds

Pottery. The pottery is characterized by funnel beakers and lugged beakers, which comprise 80-90%. The remaining part consists mainly of bowls, while open dishes and undecorated lugged jars (fig. 9 d) are less frequent. Fragments of a couple of collared flasks (fig. 9 c) were found and many clay discs.

The funnel beakers, (fig. 6-9) are of Becker's C and D forms (10) and are almost exclusively decorated with vertical belly stripes. There is a varied decoration below the rim (fig. 5).

The bowls and some of the lugged beakers are of Fuchsberg type. An article treating this pottery in detail is found elsewhere in the present volume (12).

Flint. The excavations revealed very large quantities of flint. Only a very small part of it has been treated archaeologically. The Danish text lists the occurrence of various implement types based on a sample of 476 specimens. Examples of the various types are shown in fig. 10 and 11.

Rock. Implements of rock are represented by the butt end of a battle-axe, probably of Troldebjerg type (fig. 12 a) (14), and a compact macehead and fragments of two similar pieces (fig. 12 b).

Bones. A preliminary examination of a sparse bone material from the shell layers in the ditches gives a distribution for 105 identified bones of 66% pig, 17% cattle, 9% sheep/goat, 6% red deer, 1 % roe deer and 1 % seal. Three bones have been fashioned into awls (fig. 12 c-e).

Dating

The pottery from Toftum is very homogeneous and represents a brief settlement between Early and Middle Neolithic. It is a clear transitional material between EN Megalithic C and MN I a. With a number of other finds Toftum represents an independent phase in south-west Denmark -the so-called Fuchsberg phase (17).

The function of the causewayed camps

The causewayed camps may be broadly classified into three categories with respect to interpretation. They are regarded as 1) defence structures (26), 2) cattle folds (28) and 3) meeting-places with a social, economic and/or cultic purpose (29-32). In my opinion the first two interpretations are untenable. As a basis for the third interpretation the following features are normally advanced:

1) There is no demonstrated settlement within the palisade and the ditches.

2) The ditches were apparently filled deliberately shortly after they were dug.

3) The ditches have a rich content of cultural relics, including entire or almost entire pottery.

4) There is an occurrence of intact skeletons of whole animals or parts of them, which cannot therefore have been consumed in a normal manner.

5) There is a frequent occurrence of human bones in the ditches, but rarely as entire skeletons and thus burials.

6) There have been large fires in the ditches.

Three of these features are found at Toftum (2, 3 and 6) and a further two seem to be present at Sarup (1 and 5) (33).

An interpretation of Sarup, Toftum and Bildelsdorf as meeting places seems the most likely, but as its implications for our conception of the settlement pattern of the Funnel Beaker culture is considerable, it must be regarded as tentative until more detailed investigations can follow.

Torsten Madsen