Ippesheim (NEA) - Interpretation and publication of a Middle Neolithic circular enclosure in Northern Bavaria

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The Neolithic circular enclosure at Ippesheim (Bavaria) has been representatively investigated by the applicant during four campaigns as student training excavations and with minimal budget in 1998-2004. The spectacular results, as the orientation of two causewayed gates towards prominent landmarks during the sunrise at summer and winter solstices respectively, as well as a unique vertical burial in a shaft-like pit have been published in several preliminary scientific and popular articles, the final and extensive publication of finds and features, however, is still missing. In the course of the completed DFG project "Gebautes Wissen" (Constructed Knowledge), focussing on the circular enclosures at Hopferstadt (Bavaria) and Quedlinburg (Saxony-Anhalt), new insights concerning the conception, realisation, use life and intentional/ritualised backfill process of these henge-like monuments have been gained. In the light of these new results we aim at analysing the building and backfill processes at Ippesheim in terms of stratigrapy and taphonomy and to date them at high resolution using Bayesian calibration models. A comparison with the already analysed enclosures, especially the one at Hopferstadt which is situated at only 10 km distance and appears as a successor , will provide a new understanding of the Ippesheim enclosure in particular, but also of the circular enclosure phenomenon in general.The vertical shaft burial of a female torso will be sampled according to the state of art in bioarchaeology (aDNA, stable isotopes, radiocarbon) as well as described and interpreted anthropologically. The burial which survived only partially due to soil erosion not only suggests a symbolic relation with the enclosure (possibly its abandonment), but also represents one of the few excavated human remains of the early 5th millennium in Northern Bavaria.