Altes Lager (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

for "Old Camp") is a site south of the village of Menzlin near

Anklam Anklam (), formerly known as Tanglim and Wendenburg, is a town in the Western Pomerania region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. It is situated on the banks of the Peene river, just 8 km from its mouth in the , the western ...

Western Pomerania Historical Western Pomerania, also called Cispomerania, Fore Pomerania, Front Pomerania or Hither Pomerania (; ), is the western extremity of the historic region of Pomerania, located mostly in north-eastern Germany, with a small portion in no ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The site, on the banks of the river

Peene The Peene (; ) is a river in Germany. Geography The Westpeene, with the Ostpeene as its longer tributary, and the Kleine Peene/Teterower Peene (with a ''Peene '' without specification (or ''Nordpeene'') as its smaller and shorter affluent) f ...

, was an important

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

trading-post during the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

. At that time,

Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...

was inhabited by Slavic

Wends Wends is a historical name for Slavs who inhabited present-day northeast Germany. It refers not to a homogeneous people, but to various people, tribes or groups depending on where and when it was used. In the modern day, communities identifying ...

, yet several Viking trading-posts were set up along the coast (the nearest were Ralswiek to the

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

and

Jomsborg Jomsborg or Jómsborg () was a semi-legendary Viking stronghold at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea (medieval Wendland, modern Pomerania), that existed between the 960s and 1043. Its inhabitants were known as Jomsvikings. Jomsborg's exact lo ...

/ Wollin to the east). The settlement covered an area of approximately 18 hectares in the 9th century. Remnants of a bridge and a cemetery have been excavated. Some artifacts found in the graves originated in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and in the lands east of the Baltic. Following Scandinavian customs, the dead were buried either in

stone ship The stone ship or ship setting was an early burial custom in Scandinavia, Northern Germany, and the Baltic states. The grave or cremation burial was surrounded by slabs or stones in the shape of a boat or ship. The ships vary in size and were ...

s, i.e. ship-like graves, or within

stone circles A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being bu ...

. The graves excavated so far have been found to be the tombs of women. Most findings date back to the 9th and 10th centuries.

Name

The ancient name of the site is unknown. ''Altes Lager'', the current name, dates back to Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg's 1676 siege of

Sources

* J. Hermann (Hrsg): ''Archäologie in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik''. Stuttgart 1989 * Ulrich Schoknecht: ''Menzlin: Ein frühgeschichtlicher Handelsplatz an der Peene. Beiträge zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte der Bezirke Rostock''. Schwerin und Neubrandenburg 1977 * H. Keiling: ''Menzlin, frühstädtisches Zentrum der Slawen mit Niederlassung skandinavischer Händler''. In: H.Keiling: '' Archäologische Freilichtmuseum Groß Raden''. Museumskatalog 7, Museum für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Schwerin 1989

Name

Sources

References

See also