The Great Heuberg: An Iron Age ritual landscape on the Swabian Jura, SW Germany

Abstract

This paper discusses land use on the Great Heuberg in the southwestern part of the Swabian Jura during the Urnfield period and the pre-Roman Iron Age. In contrast to adjacent landscapes, this plateau is characterized by a small site density that has been interpreted as the result of an avoidance of its low-yielding soils and harsh climate. However, this interpretation is ineligible because it tacitly transfers contemporary perceptions of environmental conditions onto prehistoric societies. The present paper reviews the history of archaeological research on the Great Heuberg to evaluate the site distribution and promotes an alternative interpretation by using the concept of liminality. Accordingly, the site distribution on the Great Heuberg may have been linked to ritual activities at the so-called Heidentor, a natural rock formation in the form of a gate located at the northeastern edge of the plateau. Material remains excavated at the site point to ritual activities from the Urnfield period onward until the end of the middle La Tène period. The overall site distribution on the plateau indicates that the journey through the landscape may have been an integral part of the rituals performed at the Heidentor. This went along with the possible construction of a liminal space in the immediate vicinity of the rock formation. In addition, the distribution of settlements and burial sites from the Hallstatt period allows a differentiation between a landscape with settlements and burial mounds in the west of the Great Heuberg and a landscape with only burial mounds on the eastern half, separated by a river. While this spatial pattern ceases to exist in the La Tène period, the liminal space is archaeologically visible until the ritual use of the Heidentor came to an end in the middle La Tène period.