Taken from the on-site information board:
As arable farming and livestock rearing became increasingly prevalent in the North German Plain, supplanting the traditional hunter-gatherer economy, the farming communities settling there began, during the 4th millennium BCE, to construct burial monuments from large boulders that remain impressive to this day.
These stone monuments, also known as ‘megalithic tombs’ (a term derived from Greek), were communal graves. They were not used to inter the mortal remains of distinguished individuals, but rather those of a settlement or village community. However, as we now know, it was not the bodies of the deceased that were interred here, but rather, in the manner of ossuaries, their bones—which had already been buried elsewhere for some time—together with the remains of the original burial site.
This megalithic tomb was first mentioned in 1846 by G. L. F. Lisch. In 1927, it was investigated by R. Beitz. A follow-up investigation was carried out in 1966 by the Mecklenburg archaeologist Prof. Dr Ewald Schuldt.
Despite the absence of some blocks, the length of the bed was determined to be 15 m and the width 10.5 m. The boundary stones, which are remarkably small compared to the chamber stones, were arranged in a trapezium shape. The rather wide gaps were filled with dry stonework made from rolled stones. A passage leading into the chamber was situated on the southern long side of the enclosure, between two larger blocks. Although the capstones were missing, it was possible to determine that it was originally probably constructed from three yokes. The passage, which ended between the third and fourth wall stones, was marked at the end by a large, broad threshold stone. The passage is approximately 2.5 m long, 0.6 m wide and 0.8 m high. In the large chamber, the floor was partly paved with boulders and divided into six sections by upright red sandstone slabs. Of the burial chamber, which consisted of six yokes, only two capstones remain.
This complex was built by members of the so-called Funnel Beaker Culture; subsequent burials in the burial chamber also date from the significantly younger Globular Amphora Culture and the Late Neolithic Individual Grave Culture.
The current appearance of the passage grave is the result of a reconstruction commissioned by the State Archaeologist W. Bastian in 1936.