Claudia MELISCH1 | Peter RAUXLOH2
(1Humboldt University Berlin, Germany | 2Museum of London Archaeology, UK)

Keywords: 3D-stratigraphy, 3D-analyses, Ancient DNA, Stable Isotopes, Mass burials

Abstract:
The multidisciplinary project “Medieval Space and Population” was launched in September 2013 involving Humboldt-University of Berlin, Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA), the Charité Berlin, the University of West Florida, the Mining Academy of Freiberg and Allen Archaeology. The project centers on the identification, the dating and the osteological and geochemical study of the initial population of Berlin’s former medieval twin town Cologne. Between 2007 and 2009 excavations at St. Peters church in Berlin revealed the bodies of 4.000 medieval to early modern individuals. The oldest graves date to the mid-12th century and the youngest by the year 1717. Because no written evidence about the founding of Berlin/Cologne survived, all information has to come from excavations. Our project tries to gain as many information as possible from the three dimensional grave-matrix. No standard visual procedures for such kind of analysis exist. We had to be creative and innovative to gain all information for grouping the graves from a combination of stratigraphy and radiocarbon-dating. This way we identified the oldest population that was buried at St. Peter’s. An ancient DNA-project was launched to identify the degree of relationship amongst the earliest population and amongst people that were buried in the same grave, since 10% of all burials are multiple graves. Another aspect of the project is the tracing of the geographical origin of the first Berliners by using stable isotope analyses and to identify the local isotope values to recognize foreigners amongst the local population.

Co-Authors: N. POWERS | I. GARLISCH | J. ROTHE| K. KILLGROVE | M. TICHOMIROVA, Germany / UK / USA