taken from the on-site information board:
Megalithic Tomb Mundersum
It is located about 2 km west of the village of Mundersum in a field called ‘Mundersumer Sand’.
The megalithic tombs were built in northern Germany between 3000 and 2000 BC by people of the so-called Funnel Beaker Culture during the Neolithic period (approx. 5000 – 2000 BC). They used boulders as building material, which had been transported from Scandinavia by glaciers during the penultimate ice age (Saale glaciation) around 200,000 years ago.
Caps stones were placed on top of vertically positioned supporting stones. The burial chambers constructed in this way were carefully sealed and then covered with earth (Figure 1). An adjustable entrance allows access. The megalithic tombs probably served as clan ossuaries, in which – in the large Emsland chambers – hundreds of dead found their final resting place.
Typical grave goods include pottery with ‘deep-cut decoration’, flint stone axes, scrapers, arrowheads and decorative beads made of amber, jet (a type of polishable coal) and, in some cases, copper (Figure 2). All of these items were important for a comfortable existence in the afterlife.
The people of the Neolithic Age were the first farmers. They ploughed with the hook plough (Figure 3), cultivated wheat and barley varieties as well as flax, and kept domestic animals. Little is known about how they lived together. In historic times, many megalithic tombs were robbed of their stones and destroyed. The Mundersum megalithic tomb is the only one that has been preserved in the municipality of Lingen.
It is a long stone chamber oriented from east-northeast to west-southwest. The former entrance was on the south side. The clear width of the chamber is approximately 18 m x 1.35 – 2.2 m.
The megalithic tomb is a cultural monument and must not be damaged.
Pictures:
1. Megalithic tomb according to Sprockhoff
2. Grave goods (drawing and photos)
3. Hook plough