The Walle Plough (German : Pflug von Walle) is an ancient plough discovered in 1927 by peat cutters outside Walle, near Aurich, East Frisia (Germany). It is one of the oldest known ploughs found in Europe.
The plough was discovered on 9 July 1927 by Jann Hanßen and his son Heye at the bottom edge of a 1.7-metre (5 ft 7 in) deep layer of peat. As a reward, Hanßen received 50 ℛℳ, which he had to share with the landowner, a man called Weinstock.
The ploughbeam is made from a single oak branch approximately 3 metres (9.8 ft) long. The ploughshare originally measured about 60 centimetres (24 in). The handle is set in a rectangular opening of the share and stabilised by additional wedges. The front part of the share is missing, because the plough had been accidentally cut into several pieces by its finders.
Pollen samples were taken in 1927 for palynological analysis. This showed that the plough dates to the Early Bronze Age at the earliest. Since it represents a fairly developed form of the scratch plough, the Walle find could also date to the later Bronze Age or Early Iron Age.
A similar plough, also of oak and of similar measurements, was found at Papau near Toruń. The scratch plough type is known through finds and images from the Neolithic, the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as from Hallstatt culture, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman contexts. The basic form is still in use in the Mediterranean region.
Why the Walle Plough had been deposited in a bog is not known. Perhaps it was meant to be temporarily sunk in the bog during the winter, to preserve its wood. In 1983, a roughly 3000-year-old stone axe was found nearby.
After the plough had begun to physically deteriorate around 1937, it was brought to the Lower Saxony State Museum at Hanover for conservation. It is still on display there. The examination of pollen and peat samples indicated that the plough could not be allocated to any period with certainty. Originally it had been estimated to be from the 4th millennium BC, but in the 1950s this was revised to a date around 2000 BC.
A replica of the plough is on display in the Historical Museum at Aurich. At Walle, a stone marks the findspot.
Coordinates: 53°29′25″N7°26′33″E / 53.49028°N 7.44250°E
Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The remains were found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat cutters. Lindow Man is not the only bog body to have been found in the moss; Lindow Woman was discovered the year before, and other body parts have also been recovered. The find was described as "one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 1980s" and caused a media sensation. It helped invigorate study of British bog bodies, which had previously been neglected.
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The Sweet Track is an ancient trackway, or causeway, in the Somerset Levels, England, named after its finder, Ray Sweet. It was built in 3807 BC and is the second-oldest timber trackway discovered in the British Isles, dating to the Neolithic. It is now known that the Sweet Track was predominantly built along the course of an earlier structure, the Post Track.
Pollen zones are a system of subdividing the Last Glacial Period and Holocene paleoclimate using the data from pollen cores. The sequence provides a global chronological structure to a wide variety of researchers, such as geologists, climatologists, geographers and archaeologists, who study the physical and cultural environment of the last 15,000 years.
Walcott is a small village and civil parish on the North Norfolk coast in England between Mundesley and Happisburgh. The name is formed from the Anglian word 'walh' and the Anglo-Saxon 'cot' meaning 'cottage, hut, shelter or den'. The village is 19.1 miles (30.7 km) north east of Norwich, 11.9 miles (19.2 km) south east of Cromer and 137 miles (220 km) north east of London. The village lies 5.6 miles (9.0 km) east of the town of North Walsham.
Wiesmoor is a town in the district of Aurich in the northwest of Lower Saxony. It lies on the Nordgeorgsfehnkanal and is the youngest town in the East Frisia area having been bestowed town rights on the 16th of March 2006, two days later on the 18th of March 2006, Wiesmoor celebrated the Centenary of the settlements founding. The town owes its growth to the industrialisation of the harvesting of peat from the surrounding moors. Wiesmoor holds an annual flower festival and the town is also known as the ‘Flower City’, the name originates from the large numbers of flowers which are grown in the town’s industrial greenhouse. Formerly the greenhouses were heated by waste heat from the now defunct peat burning power station which was located in the city. Wiesmoor also has the official title of a Luftkurort; tourism now plays an important role in the local economy.
Fan Brycheiniog is the highest peak at a height of 802.5 metres (2,633 ft) in the Black Mountain region of the Brecon Beacons National Park in southern Wales. There is a trig point at the peak and on the edge of the escarpment, and nearby, a stone shelter with an inner seat. It lies just inside the historic county of Brecknockshire which gives the mountain its Welsh name. A subsidiary top, less than a kilometre from the summit along the ridge to the northwest, is the highest point of the neighboring county of Carmarthenshire. Fan Brycheiniog is also within the Fforest Fawr Geopark designated in 2005 in recognition of the area's geological heritage. The views of the moorland and open country to the north are spectacular when the weather is clear, and reveals the isolation of the range, especially when compared with the more popular Pen y Fan range to the east.
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Ferrybridge Henge is a Neolithic henge near Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire. It is close to the A1 and M62 and Ferrybridge power station. Ferrybridge Henge is the furthest south of Yorkshire's henges, and is the only one in West Yorkshire. The site is of national importance and is protected from unauthorised change as a Scheduled Ancient Monument; despite this it is under threat from ploughing.
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The Borremose bodies are three bog bodies that were found in the Borremose peat bog in Himmerland, Denmark. Recovered between 1946 and 1948, the bodies of a man and two women have been dated to the Nordic Bronze Age. In 1891, the Gundestrup cauldron was found in a nearby bog.
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Torberry Hill is an Iron Age hillfort in the county of West Sussex, in southern England. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with a list entry identification number of 1015966. The hill fort is located within the parish of Harting, within the South Downs National Park. The hill includes the remains of an Early Iron Age univallate hill fort, a Middle Iron Age promontory fort and a post-medieval post mill. The hill is a chalk spur projecting northwards from the South Downs.
Agriculture in prehistoric Scotland includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland before the beginning of the early historic era. Scotland has between a fifth and a sixth of the arable or good pastoral land of England and Wales, mostly in the south and east. Heavy rainfall encouraged the spread of acidic blanket peat bog, which with wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. Hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made internal communication and agriculture difficult.
The archaeology of Hatfield and Thorne moors has been investigated over the last 40 years and includes significant finds of Bronze Age and Neolithic trackways.
Thundersbarrow Hill is an archaeological site in West Sussex, England. It is on a chalk ridge, aligned north-west to south-east, on the South Downs north of Shoreham-by-Sea.