Rössen

Coined after its eponymous site near Leipzig in the Saale region, the Rössen complex appears about 5400BC till 4600BC from Sachsen in Central Germany and farther south and crossing the North European Plain from the North Sea to Bohemia and bifurcating underway to the Parisian Basin as the successor to the Danubian Linear Pottery complex (LBK), sharing with the latter several analogies, merging its Spiral Ceramic phase with a Nordic Megalithic imprint, originating from Northwest Germany and entering the Danubian-influenced territory via the Harz area; the warrior-orientated social order and rivalry in more and less equal way of subsistence by the Nordic Magalithics proved damaging to the Danubians, which soon were superseded by and absorbed into the new arrivals. The Rössen folk lived in houses derived from LBK long-houses of trapezoidal form, reaching fifty meters in lenght, gathered in villages fortified with a stockade. Marshes, meadows and river dales in NW Germany were sought after for settlements in contrast to the preference for loess soils by LBK.

The lithic material reveal a minimalistic approachment to LBK, discarted mainly for the Megalithic style which surface was carpeted with a splendid decorations. Wares were usually with bulging bellies with smoothed necks ; on a black surface chevrons were incised, which got filled with a white matter.

The dead were buried in a protracted position on their right side with arms and legs put tight against the body. Racially, the Rössen people seemed overall to belong to the Nordic race.

Gustav Kossinna in his Ursprung und Verbreitung der Germanen in vor– und frühgeschichtlicher Zeit (Leipzig,1936) divides 31 skulls in four groups:

1. Steep forehead, conifrom backhead: a majority of 18 individuals.
2. Steep forehead, rounded backhead
3. Receding forehead, coniform backhead
4. Protuberant climb of the forehead, rounded backhead

Undiscriminantly all individuals deviate from the Nordic norm in their subnasal prognathism. The forehead is broad and flattish which curves angularly sideways, the skull itself proves to be narrow with hardly any bosses, and while the Nordic skull broadens midway, in Rössen it occurs in the last third ofthe skull.The orbits are high and square, but in the third group they're rather in a considerable slanting position. In face height and nasal dimensions have a the Nordic character. The first group shows no developed superciliary arches, in the second they're almost effaced. The last group resembles the megalithic Nordics of Ostdorf* (their head is medium high or high, a hint probably of Danubian admixture?).


* OSTDORFER SEEINSEL TYPE:

This type constitutes a slight deviation to the generalized Nordic race and was found in the "Flachgräber" of its eponymous station near Schwerin in Mecklenburg(NE Germany).

In norma verticalis or seen from above the skulls are of the"Schildform" type with a round forehead and curved backhead with hardly any extentions of the sidewalls.

The face is medium long, but some were quite low, showing some subnasal protrusion and rather steep foreheads, partly arching with strong browridges.

Dolichoid with a mean of CI 74, the cranial height situates in the chaema-orthocephalic range with a LHI 71.