The Bronze Age fortification of Bernstorf (Upper Bavaria, Germany) - An integrated geoarchaeological and micromorphological approach to reconstruct the genesis of the archaeological site and its prehistoric soils

伯恩斯托夫被烧毁的青铜时代防御工事被认为是阿尔卑斯山以北最大的青铜时代防御工事之一。该遗址因其1.6公里长的完全烧毁的防御工事和备受讨论的黄金和琥珀物品而获得了典范地位。它属于欧洲众多史前玻璃化堡垒之一。早在18世纪，关于焚烧防御建筑的可能理论就流传开来。除了防御工事外，还发现了青铜时代房屋的烧毁遗迹。考古遗址的复杂历史及其燃烧结构和从青铜时代延伸到铁器时代和中世纪的定居序列，辅以地质考古方法来检测土壤的时间和空间人为变化。该项目旨在1)调查青铜和铁器时代的燃烧结构和实验燃烧复制的防御工事。2)重建史前土壤的成因和占领层，区分具体的聚落活动区域。令人惊讶的是，到目前为止，暴露在高温下的沉积物被忽视为使用火的副产品，尽管它们总是存在的。它们提供了重建过去人类火灾活动和识别烟火工艺过程的机会。通过使用微观形态和岩石学方法，理论上我们能够区分不同的火灾制度，热处理和相关的应用领域，可以更具体地称为战争，炉膛或生产过程。对该防御工事的燃烧土壤和沉积物的研究已被证明是研究燃烧温度的宝贵手段，因为它显示出具有各种加热特征的温度分区。这些特征在薄片中是可识别的，适合于微形态学标准的发展，以确定燃烧温度。研究结果将用于表征伯恩斯托夫的青铜和铁器时代的燃烧结构。除了微观形貌研究外，还将应用x射线衍射、磁化率分析等。2)长期的人类活动明显改变了Bernstorf防御工事的土壤。砂生岩被砂生岩所取代，砂生岩包含不同的砂生岩阶段。为了对史前土壤进行分层，将描述层和层以及古表面，职业层和特定定居活动区域可能被确定。被烧伤层保护的职业层将根据标准的实验室分析（pH值，土壤有机质，质地，总磷酸盐等）进行处理。这些方法还将用于金和琥珀人工制品的沉积物残留物，以确定其组成、微观结构和土壤特征。如果成功，研究结果可能会为这些物体的历史、起源和年龄提供新的见解。

The burnt Bronze Age fortification of Bernstorf is known to be one of the largest Bronze Age fortifications north of the Alps. The site has obtained exemplary status due to its entirely burnt fortification of 1.6 km length and the much-discussed gold and amber objects. It belongs to the numerous prehistoric vitrified forts in Europe. Already in the 18th century possible theories for burning of defense constructions circulated. Apart from the fortification burnt remains of Bronze Age houses were discovered. The complex history of the archaeological site with its burnt structures and a settlement sequence stretching from the Bronze to the Iron- and Middle Ages is supplemented by a geoarchaeological approach to detect temporal and spatial anthropogenic changes in the soils. The project aims at 1) investigating the burnt Bronze and Iron Age structures and the experimentally burnt reproduction of the fortification. 2) The genesis of the prehistoric soils and occupation layers should be reconstructed and specific areas of settlement activities differentiated. 1) It is surprising that so far sediments exposed to high temperature were neglected as a by-product of fire use, although they are always present. They offer opportunities to reconstruct past human fire activities and identify pyrotechnological processes. By using a micromorphological and petrographical approach we are theoretically able to distinguish different fire regimes, heat treatment and related application areas which can more specifically be termed as warfare, hearth or production processes. Research on burnt soils and sediments of the fortification has turned out to be an invaluable means for investigating burning temperatures, as it displays a temperature zoning with various heating features. These features are recognizable in thin sections and suitable for the development of micromorphological criteria to identify the burning temperatures. The results will be used for the characterization of the burnt Bronze and Iron Age structures in Bernstorf. In addition to the micromorpholoigical studies x-ray diffraction, magnetic susceptibility analyses etc. will be applied. 2) Long-term human impact distinctly altered the soils in the fortification of Bernstorf. Cambiosols were replaced by colluvisols which include different phases of colluviation. In order to stratify the prehistoric soils, layers and horizons will be described as well as palaeo surfaces, occupation layers and areas of specific settlement activity are likely to be identified. Occupation layers protected by the burnt layers will be treated according to standard laboratory analyses (pH, soil organic matter, texture, total phosphate etc.). These methods will also be used on the sediment remains from the gold and amber artefacts to determine composition, micro structure and pedofeatures. If successful, the results might open up new insights into history, origin and age of the objects.