Archaeologists from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology in Saxony-Anhalt, working on sites ahead of the planned construction of a power line project, have uncovered a burial associated with the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Corded Ware Culture near Gerstewitz in Burgenland district, according to a press release issued on 15 June 2026.
The burial, that of a man of about 25, was typical of the Corded Ware Culture in that he was placed in a crouched position lying on his left hand side and facing to the south (everyone was buried in this position and facing the same way, although women were always placed on their right sides while men were always placed on their left).
However, unlike other burials from the period, he was buried within a former kiln-pit, rather than beaneath a burial mound, as was typical of the Corded Ware Culture. Furthermore, his body seems to have slipped slightly from the original position in which he was placed, possibly due to his being placed on a layer of organic material which has since decayed.
This has led to suspicions that there may have been something irregular about the burial. The man appeared to have died as a result of damage to his skull, something which could indicate that he was a murder victim, or had been killed in battle (a group of chalcolithic tribesmen, having lost a battle, might conceivably feel the need to leave the area, leading to a burial being carried out in a hurry).
There is also another possibility. While Human remains have never been found associated with a Corded Ware Culture kiln pit in the past, the remains of Horses and Dogs have been found in these settings. The assumption in those cases was that the Animals had been ritually sacrificed before being buried, raising the question as to whether the man buried in the Gerstewitz kiln pit had met the same fate.
The Corded Ware Culture gains its name from the distinctive pottery which it produced, in which rope cords were used to mark the surface of pots. The Culture first appeared in Eastern Europe around 3000 BC, and may have migrated there from the Eurasian Steppes. Genetic studies of Corded Ware individuals have concluded that they were closely related to, if not directly descended from the Yamnaya people of that area. The Corded Ware people are thought to have been one of the first Indo-European groups to move into Europe, and at there peak they occupied much of north, central, and eastern Europe, as well as parts of Scandinavia and northern Italy, as well as parts of the Caucasus and Iran.
Like the Yamnaya people, the Corded Ware people kept both horses and cattle, consumed dairy products, and used wheeled vehicles, the first people in Europe to have done so. However, they were in many was culturally contiguous with the peoples who had lived in the area before, suggesting that they spread by intermixing with the local population as they introduced new technologies, rather than by conquest and driving the former occupants off the land. The Corded Ware people were never really a single culture, but a series of linked cultures spread across a wide area. Over time these linked cultures evolved in different directions, and by about 2300 BC, had become distinctive enough that they are no longer referred to as Corded Ware Culture by archaeologists.
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