From one terp to another: archaeological excavations at Iggewarden

This summer, the NIhK once again carried out archaeological excavations in the vicinity of selected Butjenter terps as part of the project “Dwelling mounds and beach ridges in northern Butjadingen”. The aim of the project is to investigate human-environment interactions at the time of early marshland colonisation. This year‘s seven-week fieldwork took place between two closely spaced, approximately 2000-year-old terps in Iggewarden. 

The excavation team, consisting of eight students from the universities of Groningen, Rostock, and Hamburg, excavation-lead Thorsten Becker, renowned Dutch terp researcher Johan Nicolay, and excavation technician Jens Lühmann, investigated an area of 94 m by 2 m from one edge of a terp to the other. In the process, the team came across a silted-up tidal creek more than 20 m wide and a complex stratigraphy of dozens of ditches, pits, sod packs and layers of manure. This shows that human activity was not limited to the terps themselves, but also included the surrounding area. In addition to large quantities of animal bones and pottery, slag residues were found as traces of local metalworking, as well as Roman imports, including a coin and the fragment of a glass vessel. According to initial findings, the settlement dates primarily to the late Roman Iron Age.