Steinkiste Hagenah

The bronze-age stone cist of Hagenah stands in a small wooded enclosure on the Geest ridge west-south-west of Stade in Lower Saxony. It sits beside the Krügerfeld road near the local cemetery, a spot once crowded with burial mounds that were gradually levelled after the First World War. The mound known locally as the Osterbarg was itself almost removed until a local heritage officer halted the work and arranged an investigation. The cist’s contents allowed archaeologists to date the grave to the Older Bronze Age. Inside the three-metre-long stone chest lay Bronze Age bone fragments on a paved floor together with a Nordic shouldered axe, part of a dagger, and a two-piece spiral-headed fibula. The axe’s decorated shafthole and the fibula’s spiral motifs point to the period between 1500 and 1250 BC, while the dagger’s surviving tang and rivets confirm its place in the same era. Today the cist is protected by a low fence beneath tall trees, its long sides formed by two narrow upright slabs and its ends closed by larger stones. A massive capstone covers most of the chamber, while a smaller slab seals the entrance side. All joints between the uprights and the capstones were packed with smaller stones and wedged tight, some wedges driven as much as 60 cm into the undisturbed subsoil. The whole arrangement remains in place, giving a clear view of Neolithic burial practice in northern Germany.