Manfred Woidich

Environmental on‐site records covering the late La Tène culture in the late 2nd century BC and early 1st century AD are rare in southern Germany. On a local level such records could help to address the question if and when a settlement gap occurred in southern Germany between the late La Tène culture in the late 1st century BC and the onset of Roman colonisation in the late 1st century AD. Various scenarios have been proposed, ranging from complete depopulation of some areas to the collapse of primarily larger settlements accompanied by only a partial decline of land‐use intensity, up to a settlement continuity that remains obscured by taphonomic filters and insufficient typochronological resolution. Precisely dated environmental on‐site records covering the beginning of this time period therefore provide crucial evidence. Here, we present a multi‐proxy analysis (macrobotanical remains, palynology, archaeozoology and entomology) of the sediments within a wooden well structure built after 133 BC in the highly fertile Nördlinger Ries area, Bavaria. The initial record reflects nearby settlement activities, including husbandry and agriculture. A secondary use of the structure for processing of nettle is likely. The upper infill layers provide a pollen sequence that shows a rapid decline of taxa related to human activity, accompanied by species indicative of ecological succession on abandoned patches of land. We conclude that settlement activities in this region declined drastically during the 1st century BC. Our results support the hypothesis of regional depopulation in southern Germany prior to the establishment of the Roman province of Raetia.

The archaeological record for the Altheim culture (approx. 38th -35th century BC) in SW Germany is highly biased. While a small number of waterlogged sites have provided material for very detailed analyses of settlement activities and economy within this environmental setting, evidence for settlement activities outside these specific topographic situations is extremely sparse. The same applies to burial features that have been identified from eight sites which are predominantly isolated burials that have not revealed any clear modus concerning orientation, grave goods or spatial organization. Here we present results from a site situated in the Nördlinger Ries (Bavaria) that has yielded a total of eight burials of this culture together with a small number of contemporary settlement features including the rare example of a well. Our results corroborate the absence of any strict orientation or a defined set of grave goods in this culture and no spatial organization of the burials could be observed.