Mario Küßner

Thüringisches Landesamt Für Denkmalpflege Und Archäologie/ Thuringian State Office for Heritage Management and Archeology · Museum - Information - Documentation

The wealth of settlement evidence has supposed a decisive difference between prehistoric archaeology of the Mediterranean compared to that of Central Europe. This situation has changed substantially during recent years due to large scale rescue excavations carried out in central and eastern Germany. Individual houses as well as large settlement com...

With the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Central Europe ~ 2200 BC, a regional and supra-regional hierarchical social organization emerged with few individuals in positions of power (chiefs), set apart by rich graves with extensive burial constructions. However, the social organization and stratification within the majority of people, who repre...

Malaria-causing protozoa of the genus Plasmodium have exerted one of the strongest selective pressures on the human genome, and resistance alleles provide biomolecular footprints that outline the historical reach of these species¹. Nevertheless, debate persists over when and how malaria parasites emerged as human pathogens and spread around the glo...

In the last few years, a series of discoveries from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in central Germany has transformed the understanding of this period.The rich grave of the Bell Beaker Groups of Apfelstädt (Gotha County) and the discovery of graves and settlements in Leubingen and Dermsdorf (Sömmerda County) in Thuringia are indicative of...

The gold looped rings (Noppenringe) from Altenburg - remarkable Early Bronze Age finds in a special context. Two looped rings (Noppenringe), two eyelet pins and a small handleless cup form the inventory of a single pit from the Únětice culture on the Lerchenberg in Altenburg (Thuringia). This little-known feature, which was excavated as early as 1...

A newly discovered small cemetery of the younger Bell Beaker Culture near Erfurt in Central Germany is presented. A total of eleven graves of the Bell Beaker Culture are present. While three of which are assigned only on the basis of their location in the two grave groups and the radiocarbon dates, the others contain (partly) quite numerous charact...

Katalog der endneolithischen und frühbronzezeitlichen Hausgrundrisse in Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt und Thüringen.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~...

Uniparentally-inherited markers on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining regions of the Y chromosome (NRY), have been used for the past 30 years to investigate the history of humans from a maternal and paternal perspective. Researchers have preferred mtDNA due to its abundance in the cells, and comparatively high substitution rate. Conv...

En Allemagne centrale, jusqu’aux années 1990, le début de l’Âge du Bronze, comme la fin du Néolithique, étaient presque exclusivement connus, par des tombes et des fosses isolées: les plans de bâtiments, les objets spécifiques de l’habitat et les infrastructures manquaient. La situation a fondamentalement changé avec les fouilles qui ont permis pou...

Uniparentally-inherited markers on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining regions of the Y chromosome (NRY), have been used for the past 30 years to investigate the history of humans from a maternal and paternal perspective. Researchers have preferred mtDNA due to its abundance in the cells, and comparatively high substitution rate. Conv...

Discoveries and developments at the Leubingen Tumulus. The tumulus and its surroundings. This paper focuses on the famous Leubingen Tumulus, its construction and the implications of the central burial. As a small preliminary report, the most important results of the investigations of recent years at the foot of the Tumulus (diameter more than 48,5...

The paper presents a halberd that was recently found on the outskirts of Erfurt on the site of an Early Bronze Age settlement. It is the westernmost specimen of a type otherwise widespread in East Germany, Poland and Lithuania. Paper in Sczech 2020, Stadtarchäologischer Bericht über das Jahr 2019, Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte und Alt...

A Large Únetice Culture building and an associated deposit from Dermsdorf, Sömmerda district – a preliminary report. The eastern Thuringian Basin has a high density of Early Bronze Age settlement remains. An unusual Únětice Culture settlement was discovered in 2011 at Dermsdorf, a mere 3.6 km from the large barrow at Leubingen. The site yielded a...

Dwellings and settlements in Thuringia from the Final Neolithic period and the Early Bronze Age between 2500 and 1500 BC The millennium during which the transition from the Neolithic period to the Bronze Age took place is very well represented in Thuringia, by both finds and features. The Final Neolithic and to the Early Bronze Age are qually repr...

Ground-plans of Corded Ware houses at Hardisleben, Sömmerda district. Corded Ware settlement sites in Thuringia had previously mainly yielded individual pits and surface finds. There were also a number of sites that had been examined a long time ago and were difficult to interpret. Remains of Corded Ware buildings have now come to light at Hardisl...

Neolithic flint mining near Artern (Thuringia) - In the Artern mining areal were pits and small mine shafts (up to 5m depth). Cores, flakes and some blades are indications for production of blades as blanks for tools.

Corded Ware ground plans of Hardisleben (Sömmerda region) - Mainly individual pits and a quantity of surface finds of Corded Ware settlements have been known in Thuringia so far. Apart from these, there are only some settlement areas which are hard to document and were investigated a long time ago. However, remnants of Corded Ware buildings from Ha...

Neolithic miners in northern Thuringia - Remnants of mining on flint dating back to the fourth millennium BC were discovered at Artern in Thuringia in 2015. There were pits and small mine shafts (up to 5m depth). Cores, flakes and some blades are indications for production of blades as blanks for tools. This Neolithic mining served to supply the su...

Pre- and protohistory of the Thuringian Eichsfeld - The chapter deals with the prehistoric and early historical settlement of the Eichsfeld in northern Thuringia. Despite the natural disadvantages (soils, relief, climate) compared to surrounding areas, there are many evidences of prehistoric and medieval settlement. This is mainly due to traffic-ge...

The paper will discuss a weapons grave from the transition from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age (Montelius P III respectively Reinicke BZ D). The tomb was relatively rich in weapons, costume components and ceramic. The finding is on the border between the Bronze Age development in northern and southern Central Europe.

For a long time, the Central European archaeological research has been dealing with early Neolithic Spondylus-artifacts, and by whom these pieces have been particularly worn. A recently discovered small group of graves from the Linear Pottery Culture at Höngeda (district of Unstrut-Hainich) in northwest Thuringia, on the western boundary of the Mid...

This poster presents first results of our multidisciplinary geoarchaeological project in the upper Unstrut River catchment and reveals evidence that i) the area is colonized and cultivated quasi-continually since the Old Neolithic Period. ii) the first farmers (Linear Pottery) built their settlement on the edge of a large marshy area with periodica...

The first Mesolithic cremation burial found in Germany has been identified near Coswig in the Wittenberg District of Saxony-Anhalt. This burial has been dated to the first half of the 7th millennium BC, the early Atlantic period. It belongs to a small number of cremation burials that are early within the European context, and this discovery has fil...

This article deals with a small but remarkable concentration of sites with Mesolithic human remains in the northern foothills of the Thuringian Mountains in southwestern Central Germany. Numerous caves and rock shelters are known in the Zechstein reefs south and southeast of the Thuringian Basin and the Saale-Ilm-limestone plateau. A number of thes...

In the last years, new discoveries and the examination of older researches have revealed new aspects of development in the early Chalcolithic in present-day Thuringia. The article outlines the cultural-historical processes in the first half of the fourth Millennium BC.

This paper deals with a collective grave, recently discovered at Apfelstädt in Thuringia. this 'planking chamber' dates to the middle of the fourth millennium before Christ, thus, this is the oldest known in Central Germany. This grave is an indicator for the formation of Late Neolithic in Middle Germany.

Concerning the development and meaning of hunting between the Thuringian forest and the Harz in the Stone Age. From the beginnings until the end of the Neolithic This paper deals with the development and importance of game hunting in the present territory of Thuringia from the beginning of colonization until the late Neolithic with aim of some wel...

In Thuringia and adjacent areas, the settlement development was dynamic since the last Pleniglacial. In the northern of Central Europe is observed an early onset of repopulation and a very dense network of Magdalenian sites compared to the surrounding areas. The region on the northern edge of the Central European highlands, which remained uninhabit...

of Central Europe is observed an early onset of repopulation and a very dense network of Magdalenian sites compared to the surrounding areas. The region on the northern edge of the Central European highlands, which remained uninhabitated during the Last Glacial Maximum was populated again from the southeastern and southwestern refugia. The site of...

The Mesolithic in Thuringia dates approximately from 9000 to 5000 BC. After an initial period of re-forestation in the Late Glacial, great areas of Thuringia appear to have been deforested again in the Late Dryas. The sustained forestation starts in the Preboreal. The reduction of the extensive treeless tundra by the spreading forests resulted in a...

The small Abri Fuchskirche I (near Allendorf) is situated on the northeast edge of a Zechstein reef within the Northern Slope of the Thuringian Slate Mountains. At the rock shelter there are finds of stays during the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and in the "older Metal Ages". On the basis of evidence that remains of an infant found in front might be of...

The results summarized in this paper represent the original or renewed analyses of the archaeological sites of Bad Frankenhausen (Kosackenberg), Gera-Liebschwitz (Binsenacker), Gera-Zwötzen (Schafgraben), Lausnitz (Abri Theure), and Wallendorf (Weinberg). The intention of this study is to make a contribution to the structural clarification of the L...

The article deals with the archeological results of a large pipeline project, especially with the early and middle neolithic sites.

This article deals with a rich Bell Beaker culture tomb containing i.a. the oldest gold/silver artifacts found in Thuringia so far (two electron spiral rings) and more final neolithic graves from the same site.