Keywords

5.1 Introduction

Ancient monuments and artifacts are not only of interest to archaeologists; they also attract the public, be it in the form of burial mounds, ruins or other things from the past. This is not only true for present-day societies but applies to other periods, too (e.g. Driscoll, 1998; García Sanjuán & Díaz-Guardamino, 2015; Newman, 1998 for pre-modern times; Dietler, 1998; Hakelberg & Wiwjorra, 2010 for the early modern period). Multiperiod sites, excavated ever since the beginning of prehistoric archaeology, reveal that prehistoric and early historic communities came into contact with the remnants of the (distant) past and interacted with these. Such deliberate reuse may have taken place because sites were recognizable as a result of their previous use; but conversely, it may have happened coincidentally, too.

This phenomenon has been the topic of a fruitful debate in prehistoric archaeology in the last decades (e.g. Bradley, 1987, 2002; Díaz-Guardamino et al., 2015; Holtorf, 1998, 2005; Williams, 1998). It calls attention to several cultural and societal practices and the archaeology of memory (e.g. Jones, 2007; Veit, 2005), ancestor veneration (Hill & Hagemann, 2016), appropriation and negotiation of the past (Sommer, 2017; Weiss-Krejci, 2015), and other topics related to the awareness of time and tradition (Sommer, 2014). This is based on the mnemonic character of monuments that preserve aspects of the past for later times (Wendling, 2016, pp. 100–102). Monuments such as megaliths or burial mounds were not only of significance for the communities who constructed them, but also for those who succeeded them (Bradley, 1987, pp.14–15). This is reflected in the biography of such monuments as indicated in many excavations and diachronic analyses (Cooney, 2015, p. 57; Holtorf, 1998, 2000–2008). Monuments are therefore not only interesting in terms of their erection and use during pre-/historic times, but also as regards their potential to provoke reactions in later periods (Bradley, 2002, p. 113; Díaz-Guardamino et al., 2015, pp. 6–8; Holtorf, 2008, pp. 413–414). The biographies of monuments thus offer different narratives dependent on the perspective of archaeological investigations. The same multilayered character must also be taken into account for the whole cultural landscape (see e.g. Arnold, 2002) beyond the single monument as well as for artifacts inherited or rediscovered in times after their initial manufacturing and use (Lillios, 2008, pp. 239–241). Therefore, the whole archaeological record may provide insights into how the past was perceived, (re)interpreted, and negotiated in different times and regions.

Whereas theoretical and in-depth analyses on the past in the past were conducted for large parts of Europe (e.g. Bradley, 2002, 2015; Díaz-Guardamino et al., 2015), German-speaking archaeology still mostly focuses on single sites for which this phenomenon is testified (with the exception of e.g. Sopp, 1999 and Wendling, 2016). This situation offers a good point of departure for an integrative analysis of the perception of the past in the Iron Ages of northern Germany (Pre-Roman Iron Age: c. 600–1 BC; Roman Iron Age: c. AD 1–375; Migration Period: c. AD 375–600; mostly associated with Germanic tribes). I will first discuss the tradition of the reuse and appropriation of ancient burial sites for funerary activities and how that connects to notions of the past (see Fig. 5.1 for the location of all mentioned sites). Subsequently I will put this phenomenon into the wider context in which the distant past is perceived and used throughout the Iron Ages, to draw a more complete picture of how Iron Age communities arranged themselves in a landscape partly shaped by older times.

Fig. 5.1
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Location of the sites mentioned in the text: 1 = Anderlingen (Rotenburg district, Lower Saxony); 2 = Borstel (formerly Nienburg/Weser district, today Diepholz district, Lower Saxony); 3 = Kronsburg-Glinde, Bredenbek (Rendsburg-Eckernförde district, Schleswig-Holstein); 4 = Calden (Kassel district, Hesse); 5 = Dishley (formerly Neubrandenburg district, today Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern); 6 = Ehestorf-Vahrendorf (Harburg district, Lower Saxony); 7 = Göhren (Vorpommern-Rügen district, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern); 8 = Grethem (formerly Soltau-Fallingbostel district, today Heidekreis district, Lower Saxony); 9 = Gustow (Vorpommern-Rügen district, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern); 10 = Hedevang, Kobberup (Viborg municipality, Central Denmark); 11 = Hjortspring bog (Sønderborg municipality, Southern Denmark); 12 = Horneburg (Stade district, Lower Saxony); 13 = Lemke (Nienburg district, Lower Saxony); 14 = Liebenau (Nienburg district, Lower Saxony); 15 = Mellenthin (formerly Wolgast district, today Vorpommern-Greifswald district, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern); 16 = Melzingen (Uelzen district, Lower Saxony); 17 = Thorsberg moor (Schleswig-Flensburg district, Schleswig-Holstein); 18 = Twietfort (formerly Lübz district, today Ludwigslust-Parchim district, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). (Image adapted by L. Eckert from https://maps-for-free.com/, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license CC BY-SA; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

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5.2 Burying Alongside the Long-Dead: The Reuse of Ancient Burial Grounds for Burial Activities

The evidence from graves is one of the main sources for the study of the Iron Ages in northern Germany, as burial grounds from these times were investigated ever since the beginning of archaeology. In the Pre-Roman Iron Age, though regional differences exist, the deceased were predominantly cremated and their burnt remains then inserted into urns and deposited in cemeteries of up to several hundred urns (‘urnfields’). The graves partly feature stone constructions and grave goods are generally relatively scarce (Bräunig, 2014). While the overall burial rite does not change from the Pre-Roman Iron Age to the Roman Iron Age the amount and the variety of grave goods increase to a large extent and inhumations become more regular (Derks, 2012, pp. 23–54; Schultze, 1992). The Migration Period is characterized by a continuity in the burial rituals but also by a diversification and regionalization, which makes it hard to draw a concrete overall picture of the burial rituals (Schach-Dörges, 1970; Schultze, 1992).

The reuse of ancient burial grounds for funerary activities is attested in many burial sites throughout northern Germany and adjacent regions and has been known since the beginning of archaeology as a discipline. Evidence for later burials in earlier barrows were especially useful for creating relative chronologies and as such gained much attention, such as the well-known ‘Three period barrow’ of Melzingen (Lower Saxony) (Jacob-Friesen, 1959, p. 4). With issues of chronology mostly solved, the debate shifted to focus on the types, the meaning, and the frequency of this practice (Hofmann, 2008; Sopp, 1999).

The reuse of long abandoned burial grounds is different from the multiperiod continuous use of a cemetery and it can take different spatial expressions. Matthias Sopp differentiates between burying directly into an ancient burial mound, burying at the mound, and adjacent to an ancient burial mound (Sopp, 1999). Kerstin Hofmann makes a distinction between minimal reuse for the placement of urns and large-scale intrusions and changes, such as the construction of a whole new embankment on the mound (Hofmann, 2008, pp. 279–280).

Even though the phenomenon is mostly discussed in the context of (mainly Bronze Age) burial mounds , other notable features also deserve consideration. Most recognizable of course are the megalithic tombs (Holtorf, 1998, 2000–2008), but much shallower traces of older burial grounds were also reused (Krüger, 1961, p. 15). Natural elevations also attracted funerary activities during the Iron Ages and therefore it is not always clear whether places were chosen because of former human activities or because of their topographic qualities (already indicated by Schwantes, 1911, p. 98). Burial mounds, however, are a very specific landscape feature and the frequency of their reuse (see below) indicates a general interest in that type of construction amongst ancient societies.

In terms of the number of burials installed on older burials grounds, the phenomenon of reuse of such sites can be divided into two different types: On the one hand, we can observe the foundation of entire new burial grounds at the location of ancient cemeteries , such as the Migration Period cemetery of Liebenau (Lower Saxony), which comprised inhumation, cremation, and bustum graves Footnote 1 and was established in the area of a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age cremation cemetery (Hässler, 1999) or the Pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age urnfield of Ehestorf-Vahrendorf (Lower Saxony), which was founded adjacent to an Early Bronze Age burial mound (Wegewitz, 1962). On the other hand, at several older burial sites only a handful of deceased were buried, such as at Twietfort (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) where two urns of the Pre-Roman Iron Age were inserted into a megalithic tomb (Rennebach, 1975), or at Anderlingen (Lower Saxony) and Gustow on the island of Rügen (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) where only very few graves of the Migration Period were dug into older mounds (Blaich, 2006; Schach-Dörges, 1970, p. 188).

As already indicated by the few examples mentioned, the reuse of ancient burial grounds is practiced throughout the Iron Ages (and beyond). Still, vast regional differences can be discerned in terms of distribution and quantity of sites. For example, 60% of all Pre-Roman Iron Age burial sites in the district of Rotenburg were founded in long abandoned burial grounds (Eichfeld, 2005, p. 66) whereas in the area of the rivers Elde and Karthane the numbers are much lower (Keiling, 1969, p. 23). Sopp’s (1999) compilation of reused ancient burial sites in northern Germany provides a useful basis for a diachronic perspective. While the phenomenon is regularly documented in both the Pre-Roman and the Roman Iron Age in northern Germany, with dozens of documented sites (Fig. 5.2 top), only about 20 ancient burial grounds were reused during the Migration Period (Fig. 5.2 bottom), and the practice was almost completely abandoned in northeastern Germany (see also Blaich, 2006 on this phenomenon).Footnote 2 However, a concentration is evident in the area of the lower Elbe. This more regional distribution has been discussed as part of the ethnic identity of the Saxons and as evidence of Anglo-Saxon migrations (Thäte, 1996; but see the critical comment by Härke & Williams, 1997).

Fig. 5.2
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Prehistoric burial sites of northern Germany reused in the Roman Iron Age (top) and the Migration Period (bottom). (Image adapted by L. Eckert from https://maps-for-free.com/, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license CC BY-SA; data based on Sopp, 1999; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

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Therefore, despite the fact that ancient burial grounds were reused throughout the entire Iron Ages, regional and temporal differences, as well as different combinations, are evident at different sites of the same region and period. As such, we can hardly speak of a uniform phenomenon. Rather, a range of different practices took place following the foundation of a burial ground, involving the decision to bury at a long-abandoned cemetery. The tradition of reusing ancient burial grounds and thus referencing the distant past was important during the Iron Ages, yet it may have been but one element in a more widespread process of interacting with the past, transcending the domain of funerary activity.

5.3 Beyond Burial(s): The Wider Context of the Perception and Appropriation of the Past During the Iron Ages in Northern Central Europe

5.3.1 Reuse of Old Burial Sites for Non-Funerary Activities

During the Iron Age, ancient mounds, burial grounds , and megalithic tombs were also used for non-funerary activities. These appear to have been conducted in a ritual context, for they do not match the necessary features of regular settlement activities. One example is a burial mound of the Bronze Age at Kronsburg-Glinde, Bredenbek (Schleswig-Holstein) where pits with traces of fire from the Pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages were discovered, thus indicating ritual activities at the burial ground (Kneisel & Rode, 2014). Fire pits were also detected around megalithic tombs, like in Horneburg (Lower Saxony), with a large amount of such pits in the vicinity of the tomb (pers. comm. Daniel Nösler, Agathenburg). As such, ancient mounds and burial grounds were not only reused to bury the dead, but also for non-funerary gatherings and rituals. Thus, Iron Age pottery excavated from several megalithic tombs (Holtorf, 2000–2008) might not always indicate the remnants of cremation urn deposits but also of other events.

Rituals aside, such single finds might also reflect settlement activities directly located at older burial mounds. Sites like Horneburg in Lower Saxony (Fig. 5.3) and Mellenthin or Dishley in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern clearly illustrate settlement activities around the monuments in the Pre-Roman Iron Age (Holtorf, 2000–2008). This location of settlements is also known from the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period and is testified in other regions as well, like at Calden (Hesse) (Raetzel-Fabian, 2000, pp. 97–99) or at Hedevang, Kobberup (Central Denmark) (Aner et al., 2008, p. 16).

Fig. 5.3
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The excavation plan of Horneburg (Stade district, Lower Saxony). Surrounding the remains of a dolmen, several Iron Age contexts were documented. Among these are fire pits and houses. (Image adapted from ArchaeoFirm)

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5.3.2 Reuse of Non-Burial Sites

Besides ancient burial grounds, other sites might have been reused as well. The problem is that the evidence for such practices is harder to come by, especially for settlements. Their positioning in the landscape may have been shaped by many additional factors and older settlement remains are hard to recognize on the surface after some decades. Yet other sites might also play a role in this context. For example, the votive deposits in the Thorsberg moor on the peninsula of Anglia (Schleswig-Holstein) yielded pottery from the Pre-Roman Iron Age (Raddatz, 1957, 1970) in addition to the well-known weapon offerings from the Roman Iron Age (Blankenfeldt, 2015; Carnap-Bornheim, 2014; Lau, 2014; Matešić, 2015). There are also some single finds from the Bronze Age, illustrating the use of the bog before the Iron Ages. This might indicate that the bog was well known as a special site for the communities of the Roman Iron Age and therefore the decision to carry out sacrifice in this specific location might have been influenced by the ancient use of this landscape.

Furthermore, several of the sacrificial sites of the Roman Iron Age in southern Scandinavia show different phases of ritual activity with periods in between during which these sites—at least according to our current state of knowledge—were not used. This is thus an example of how such sites were known and reused (see Bemmann & Hahne, 1992, p. 65, fig. 9). Comparable Pre-Roman Iron Age practices with depositions of weapons and boats are known from the Hjortspring bog on the island of Als (Southern Denmark), pre-dating the classic examples from the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period by some 400 years (Kaul, 2003, p. 175). Hence, the whole phenomenon might be related to ancient ritual practices already conducted generations earlier and rooted in people’s collective memory.

5.3.3 Heirloom Objects

In addition to the reuse of single monuments during the Iron Ages, two other categories of perception and appropriation of the past require attention. First, we need to shed light on how artifacts were reused during these periods. Archaeological finds (‘heirloom objects’) that are older than the structures in which they were found have puzzled archaeologists since the very beginning of typochronological dating and provide an interesting link to the questions discussed in this paper. Heirloom objects have been found at reoccupied sites such as Göhren on the island of Rügen (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) where a settlement of the Pre-Roman Iron Age was built adjacent to a megalithic tomb and where stone axes , supposedly taken from the tomb at some point in the Iron Age, were deposited in a hearth (Hollnagel, 1963). Apart from such cases, heirloom objects have also been encountered at sites that show no former occupation history, which suggests that these objects circulated among Iron Age communities to a certain extent.

One striking example derives from Borstel (Lower Saxony) where a Pre-Roman Iron Age urn with cremated remains was found (Gutmann, 1954). The urn which was covered by a reversed cup held a bronze axe, dating around Period II/III of the Bronze Age (second half of the second millennium BC) (Fig. 5.4). That means that the axe was already several hundred years old before it was finally deposited in the urn. Therefore, even though further information remains scarce, the bronze axe can be seen as an heirloom that was deposited in the course of the burial ritual. Additionally, the deposit had been inserted into an ancient burial mound and hence conforms to the already outlined reuse of ancient monuments. Sadly, the precise date of the mound is not known as it was not excavated further.

Fig. 5.4
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The finds from Borstel (Diepholz district, Lower Saxony). The urn and cup date to the early Pre-Roman Iron Age whereas the bronze axe dates to the earlier Bronze Age. (Gutmann, 1954)

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Another interesting case of an heirloom object comes from a Roman Iron Age cremation grave at Grethem (Lower Saxony). Amongst the burnt remains of an adult woman and several other grave goods, a Roman comb fragment made from ivory (Fig. 5.5) was found. The comb was originally manufactured during the times of Emperor Augustus and hence already an antiquity when deposited in the grave (Ludowici & Meyer, 2008).

Fig. 5.5
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The Augustan period comb from Grethem (Heidekreis district, Lower Saxony) was deposited in a Roman Iron Age cremation grave postdating its manufacture by centuries. (Hannover The WorldMuseum; © Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover, Landesmuseum)

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Another example, this time from a non-funerary context, has been reported from the Roman Iron Age settlement of Lemke (Lower Saxony) where a posthole associated with an Iron Age building revealed a grinding stone, a piece of flint, and a pot dating from the late Neolithic Single Grave Culture (Scholz, 2015). Thus, these Neolithic finds might represent a ritual deposition in the course of the construction of the building, a phenomenon that is well known from the Roman Iron Age (see Beilke-Voigt, 2007 for an overview). As such, the example is not particularly unusual, but the artifacts clearly stand out, for, upon their deposition, they were already several thousand years old.

Sadly, it remains entirely unclear at the moment how these artifacts were obtained by Iron Age societies (see some possible explanations debated by Mehling, 1998 for the Early Middle Ages in southern Germany). Several possibilities present themselves. Thus, the Bronze Age axe was probably retrieved during activities on Bronze Age burial grounds, the Roman comb may have been an heirloom, and the Neolithic pot may have been accidentally recovered during settlement works.Footnote 3 Yet all these interpretations cannot be verified in the archaeological record and based on the current state of research we do not know a sufficient number of such cases to see patterns in the material. As such, these artifacts complement the reuse of monuments, but rarely offer possibilities for a far-reaching interpretation. In fact, it is worth considering whether they were perceived as antiquities at all. While a bronze axe in the Iron Age was most likely perceived as some old tool, the Roman comb is a less clear example. Roman luxury goods of this kind were of great demand in the Iron Ages, even as antiquities (Ludowici, 2019, pp. 68–69). However, we need to keep in mind that we do not know when the comb found its way into northern Germany. It was surely perceived as exotic and probably of Roman origin, but we can only speculate whether or not the Iron Age community was aware of its antiquity. Nevertheless, the examples given here indicate that antiquities were known in the Iron Ages of northern Central Europe and, as such, add another perspective to the perception of the past in these periods.

5.3.4 Field Systems and Monuments

With the focus on single sites and finds, and in contrast to other archaeological traditions, German archaeology has often neglected the rural landscape of Iron Age societies as regards traces of previous periods. However, single sites and settlements are embedded in a wider settlement system and therefore the role of ancient features between individual sites should be investigated, too. One such type of feature are field systems surrounding the settlements, so called ‘Celtic fields’.Footnote 4 Celtic fields are prehistoric farmlands divided into square plots by means of wide and shallow ramparts. They played a major role in Iron Age farming. LiDAR technology has revealed several Celtic fields in northern Germany and adjacent regions (Arnold, 2011, 2012). Even though long recognized (see several examples in Müller-Wille, 1965), examinations of LiDAR scans brought to light a link between Iron Age field systems and older barrows. These barrows had been incorporated into the agricultural fields; in some cases they marked edges and borders (Fig. 5.6; e.g. Nösler, 2018).

Fig. 5.6
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LiDAR scan of Celtic fields in the municipality of Oldendorf (Stade district, Lower Saxony) with older barrows in the southeastern vicinities of the field systems. (Image adapted by Daniel Nösler from Geobasisdaten des Landesamtes für Geoinformation und Landesvermessung Niedersachsen; © Landesamtes für Geoinformation und Landesvermessung Niedersachsen 2018)

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Yet, it also seems fruitful to go even further beyond the sites and pursue a landscape approach that specifically looks at the whole cultural landscape and integrates the Iron Age sites into the wider context (see e.g. Ballmer, 2018 for aspects of mounds and landscape relations). For even though some older monuments might seem distant from later sites, that does not mean that they were not incorporated into pathways and known and perceived in everyday life during the Iron Ages. GIS analyses form a good basis to apply landscape archaeology diachronically to that specific issue, whilst providing an opportunity to utilize big data from heritage organizations (Fig. 5.7).

Fig. 5.7
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Distribution of sites from the Migration Period in the Stade district (Lower Saxony) superimposed on a heatmap of superficially recognizable sites pertaining to earlier periods. The heatmap not only indicates the denseness of older monuments in contrast to the mapped sites of the Migration Period but also reveals which Migration Period locations had already been in use before. (Image adapted from GeoBasis-DE/BKG 2019, https://www.bkg.bund.de/; © Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie)

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To sum up, despite the problem of traceability and the circumstance that we lack the most prominent aspect of this phenomenon, i.e. the oral histories connected to ancient monuments, the different archaeological examples clearly illustrate the significance of the distant past for Iron Age communities in northern Germany. Thereby it becomes evident that ancient monuments and finds were dealt with in various ways, however they seem to have played an important role in these Iron Age societies.

5.4 Possibilities of Interpretation: Between Ancestor Veneration, Identity, and Distinction

So far, the focus of this chapter has been on how Iron Age communities perceived the distant past and how they interacted with the remnants of earlier periods. It is evident that the remains of the past were regularly recognized and dealt with throughout the Iron Age, implying their important role during that period. The questions of why that may have happened and how to interpret such activities have not been addressed so far, but they are of course one of the most intriguing parts of work on this phenomenon. Richard Bradley pointed out that the reuse of ancient monuments was linked to either interpretation, confrontation or legitimation (Bradley, 2002, pp. 122–124). Furthermore, ancestor veneration (Hill & Hageman, 2016), invention of traditions, and appropriations of monuments and the past (Weiss-Krejci, 2015) are aspects that need to be considered in this context, though all these issues naturally overlap to some degree. Some major aspects of the debate will be pointed out, which touch on the subject of cultural memory.

Most evidence presented in this chapter deals with burial sites, including both funerary and non-funerary activities that took place there. This does not come as a big surprise as funerary monuments—be it megaliths or burial mounds—comprise the majority of visible older monuments in northern Germany. Still, the appropriation of things from the distant past goes beyond the dead and the different aspects sketched out above indicate a much broader process of recognition and appropriation.

One interpretation that is mostly connected to the reuse of burial grounds and possible heirlooms is that the past is used as a part of social distinction (Bradley, 2002, pp. 119–122). In that sense the reuse of ancient monuments intends to legitimate power through forging links to a distant past (Cooney, 2015, p. 70), which is especially evident in societies where social status is inherited. This aspect features heavily in discussions about Iron Age groups in the more southern regions of Central Europe, focusing on elaborate systems of social and political organization in conjunction with the appropriation of the past (e.g. Fernández-Götz, 2014a; Müller, 2016). For northern Germany, this aspect is rarely considered because societal reconstructions indicate more egalitarian structures, e.g. for the Pre-Roman Iron Age (see Brandt, 2009). Nor is it reflected at the level of the sites, as burials at ancient mounds do not stand out from other contemporaneous burials and the frequency of the phenomenon indicates a much broader reuse of such places. Furthermore, besides single graves or small burial communities, whole burials were erected adjacent to ancient sites, and this too reflects a broader societal phenomenon. Here material culture seemingly is not representative of classic heirlooms and objects of genealogical meaning (see Lillios, 1999, pp. 251–252 on the archaeological identification of heirlooms) as indicated for other regions in the Iron Ages of Central Europe (e.g. Tomedi, 1996; Wendling, 2016, p. 104). These objects rather seem to be occasional finds, and, as such, they do not seem to reflect a direct social distinction connected to a remembered remote past. Nevertheless, they seem to be curated artifacts with a mnemonic character (Lillios, 2008, 239). Therefore, the use of the distant past does not seem to have been directly associated with societal distinction in the Iron Ages. Still, occasional practices related to and performed at ancient sites might have been part of a process of social distinction and therefore this topic cannot be completely ruled out for the Iron Ages in northern Germany.

The second issue that is regularly discussed in this context is ancestor veneration that is especially reflected in burials. Here it needs to be pointed out that in German-speaking archaeology the term ‘ancestor worship’ is often used as a shorthand to describe potential (re)uses of the past, without being further investigated (see Müller, 2016, p. vi). Naturally, ancestor veneration is a very plausible interpretation for some of the phenomena discussed here; still a more nuanced approach is desirable (Hill & Hageman, 2016; Whitley, 2002). First, it needs to be investigated whether real ancestors could be addressed with the practices performed. This seems plausible for sites with a continuous use or only short gaps in the sequence, the Iron Age of southern Central Europe being a prime example. Here communities of the Late Iron Age (La Tène Period, c. 450–1 BC) regularly interacted with mortuary monuments of the Early Iron Age (Hallstatt C and D, c. 800–450 BC) by constructing their landscapes with reference to these earlier burial places (Arnold, 2002) and reusing them for funerary as well as non-funerary activities (e.g. Wendling, 2016; Müller-Scheeßel, 2013, p. 80). Ancestor veneration is also a plausible interpretation for Iron Age activities in northern Germany, for example in burial grounds that were continuously used from the Bronze Age, as shown in the examples above. Sites abandoned for many centuries or millennia could have also served to promote the veneration of mythical ancestors, though it needs to be critically discussed whether such a finding is compatible with a veneration of real ancestors , often (partly) defined as being related in a genealogical way to the venerating communities (Hageman & Hill, 2016, pp. 5–8). Therefore, this sort of reuse might serve for the appropriation of land and/or history and legitimation of power (Bradley, 2002, pp. 119–122; Weiss-Krejci, 2015, pp. 307–309). The tombs and mortuary landscape represent a form of ‘ancestor time’ in which landscape and people become fused (Murray, 2016, p. 149). This heavily touches on the topics of memory in archaeology, a well-debated field in the last decades (e.g. Jones, 2007), as well as time awareness and perception (Sommer, 2014; Weiss-Krejci, 2015, p. 308). Thus, we may cite memory and remembrance of the distant past as decisive factors in bringing about the examples discussed here; or we may ascribe particular importance to the rediscovery and reinterpretation of forgotten places during the Iron Ages. That, in turn, may lead us to inquire into the cultural invention of tradition, lineage, and memory. Here Neolithic sites that were reused only in the Iron Ages in northern Germany are particularly noteworthy, for they give us more insights into how the past was negotiated and appropriated based on a process of rediscovery and reinterpretation rather than active remembrance (Díaz-Guardamino et al., 2015, pp. 10–11). Such sites therefore tell us more about the present than about the past in the Iron Ages (Holtorf, 2008, pp. 412–414). All these possibilities are significant in our identification of ancestor veneration in the Iron Ages and, more generally, furnish our understanding of how the past was renegotiated during that period. Therefore, this needs to be investigated for single monuments, single phenomena, and entire landscapes. In any case, the use of the past calls for an intensive discussion.

Such considerations challenge superficial interpretations and call for an in-depth analysis of the agency of the (long) dead, the perception of ancient sites and monuments, the preservation and construction of memory and time, and many other aspects connected to the past in the past. Yet, though outside the scope of this chapter, detailed analyses of the phenomena mentioned here can surely reveal more insights into these practices and open up possibilities for less broad-sweeping and more fine-grained interpretations. Nevertheless, the spectrum of perceptions and appropriations of the remains of the past in the Iron Ages of northern Germany already indicates that the past and the long gone played an important role in the lives of Iron Age communities and certainly were key to forging collective (e.g. Fernández-Götz, 2014b) and individual identities. Therefore, the past in the past remains a vibrant research topic for prehistoric archaeology to explore.