In 1999, an American team began excavation of an Early Iron Age burial mound in the "Speckhau" tumulus group near the internationally renowned Heuneburg hillfort on the upper Danube River in Baden-Württemberg as part of a research initiative focused on Early Iron Age mortuary practices. The results of three field seasons of excavation by the "Landscape of Ancestors" project in two 20-meter diameter burial mounds are presented in this publication. There are hundreds of burial mounds in the vicinity of the Heuneburg, but until the "Landscape of Ancestors" project, no systematic investigations had been conducted in mounds under 50 meters in diameter. Such mounds provide an important source of information about how society was organized at a critical time in the evolution of social complexity in the region, which was increasingly connected with cultural developments in other areas of Europe. The project produced the first evidence for Early Iron Age mortuary activity predating the founding of the Heuneburg, beginning ca. 700 BCE and extending well into La Tène A.
Post-excavation innovations in materials analysis included the first use of CT-scan technology in the examination of fragile metal and organic grave goods that revealed previously unknown details of the technology used in manufacturing personal ornament and weapons as well as their precise placement in the grave. Other innovations included 3-D reconstruction of ceramic vessels to facilitate scientific analysis and visualization.
The material culture recovered from 21 inhumation graves links the "Speckhau" population with northern Italy, Britain and the Iberian Peninsula, indicating that such external connections were not limited to the elites in central chambers in the better-known mega-mounds of the region. This volume contributes to an ongoing reimagining of the Early Iron Age cemetery as a place of multiscalar activities with remarkably diverse individual and group expressions and materialities.