Altes Lager ( German for "Old Camp") is a site south of the village of Menzlin near Anklam,

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, 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, yet several Viking trading-posts were set up along the coast (the nearest were Ralswiek to the West and Jomsborg/ 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 ships, 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 Anklam.

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