Nucleus

taken from the information board:

Matthiesing’s altar stone

Altar stone from the early Stone Age (3rd millennium BC). According to legend, the devil wanted to hurl this boulder against the Ueffel church and destroy it.

But the devil’s power was broken by the crowing of the cock at the neighboring court of Matthiesing at midnight.

The stone then turned on its own axis.

taken from the “Route of Megalithic Culture” information board:

Traveling Stones

During the Saalian (Wolstonian) Stage of the Ice Age about 20,000 years ago glaciers transported granite stones from Scandonavia to Northern Germany, which at the time was covered by approx. 400 metres of ice. Climatic warming caused the ice to melt, thus providing the Neolithic people in North-West Germany with their impressive construction material.

Only the Karlsteine do not fit into the pciture: The carbon-quartzite used originates from the neighbouring Piesberg. According to the legend Charlemagne split the capstone in half with his whip which is even more astonishing given that carbon-quartize is one of the toughest stone far and wide.

Within walking distance (approx. 500 metres) to the southwest the “Kreuz im Hone” a cross is commemorating the place where the first Christian mass in the Osnabrück region was said 783 AD. Following Charlemagne’s ambitions to convert the Saxons to Christianity.

taken from the information board:

Devil’s oven
Neolithic megalithic grave

On the construction of megalithic tombs
Megalithic tombs are among the buildings of the so-called megalithic culture (from Greek mega = large and lithos = stone). Its essential element is the upright stone (= menhir). Such constructions exist as rows of stones, stone circles, temples and tombs. The best known example is Stonehenge in England.

The North German megalithic sites are almost exclusively grave sites from the Neolithic period, built between 3,500 and 2,800 BC. The core of a site is the ground-level chamber. It consists of individual yokes placed side by side in east-west direction (one yoke = two wall stones and one capstone) and the closing stones on the narrow sides. The floor of the burial chamber was paved with small boulder fragments and stone scree. The large joints between the wall and ceiling stones are filled with dry masonry wall.

The name passage grave, as a name for the type of grave that is common in our country, states that originally a short passage formed of boulders ran towards the middle of the southern longitudinal wall.

The entire stone construction was covered by its builders with a mound. The hill foot was partly framed with still visible oval stoneworks to prevent slippage of the accumulated earth masses.

taken from the information board:

Devils dough trough
Neolithic grave site

The builders of the megalithic tombs
In northern Germany, the megalithic tombs belong to the legacy of the so-called funnel beaker culture, named after the typical shape of their pottery. This population began in the Neolithic period from about 3,500 BC. also in our country, to practice agriculture and livestock. With this they finished the oldest and longest period of human history, the time of hunter-gatherer cultures, and introduced the sedentary way of life.

From the study of flower pollen we know today that it was 2-3°C warmer then today. There were large oak mixed forests on whose clear edges, near the stream or river, with stone axes the forest was cleared and fields and settlements were created. The most important crop was cereals, whereby only those species were cultivated, which came in the course of 5,000 years with the spreading of the rural way of life from Near East to Central and Northern Europe. These included the wheat varieties einkorn and wild emmer as well as barley.

The livestock can be retraced from individual bone finds. In the 4th millennium BC after that, cattle and pigs and, also imported from Southeastern Europe, sheep and goats were bred.

taken from the information board:

Megalithic tomb Slopsteine
Neolithic grave site
(3500 – 2800 BC)

The foothills of the Wiehengebirges north of Bissendorf are well into the 18./19. Century a center of graves from the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The map shows this picture also for today’s time, however the inventory has decreased by a multiple. The exact number of originally existing sites is no longer detectable today.

The megalithic tombs belong to the Neolithic megalithic culture (Greek: “mega” = large, “lithos” = the stone) and are among the oldest and most impressive proof of human life and work in northern Germany. They date from the 3rd to the 4th millennium BC and still inspire the imagination of the viewer today. The researchers associate them with the Neolithic revolution when the sedentary lifestyle began with the beginnings of agriculture and livestock. Concrete references to the people who built and used these monuments are sparse.

taken from the information board:

Megalithic tomb Deitinghausen
Neolithic grave site
(3500 – 2800 BC)

The foothills of the Wiehengebirges north of Bissendorf are well into the 18./19. Century a center of graves from the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The map shows this picture also for today’s time, however the inventory has decreased by a multiple. The exact number of originally existing sites is no longer detectable today.

The megalithic tombs belong to the Neolithic megalithic culture (Greek: “mega” = large, “lithos” = the stone) and are among the oldest and most impressive proof of human life and work in northern Germany. They date from the 3rd to the 4th millennium BC and still inspire the imagination of the viewer today. The researchers associate them with the Neolithic revolution when the sedentary lifestyle began with the beginnings of agriculture and livestock. Concrete references to the people who built and used these monuments are sparse.