Revisiting the LBK Water Wells of Saxony

Abstract

Since 1995 a collection of thirteen water wells from the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) of the Early Neolithic have been discovered during archaeological excavations in Saxony, Germany. Timber beams reinforced the walls of the wells, creating vertical tunnels reaching down into subterranean depths. The discovery of these structures rewrote local histories of carpentry, becoming the earliest known examples of joinery from Central Europe that are still in existence today. Due to reactions with air and water that cause wood to rot, timber constructions rarely survive for long. Sealed in an anaerobic environment, these wells were preserved underground for over 7,000 years, before their recent unearthing. Following two research trips I undertook to Germany to visit the current well excavation – the first in June-July 2016, the second in March-June 2017 – and the studio processes that ensued, my research paper thinks through situations where material histories become mobilised during embodied encounters with site. My project proposes book-making as an approach to site-based spatial practice, where books are used as tools for navigating a complex of material histories and intersecting timescales made evident in the movement of the wells from below- to above- ground. This project has culminated in three core creative works. Each work approaches book-making through various forms of material, embodied, and site-based enquiry. I understand book-making through practice, where books are defined not purely by objecthood, but by their ongoing transformative connections with the material histories, fluctuating knowledges, and skilled networks, present in the well’s excavation. The three works I will discuss in this paper are: a scattering of ceramic sheets, made of clay from Droßdorf, Saxony, and fired onsite, before being installed at the well excavation; a body of writing I did during my fieldwork, which culminated in a collection of fragmented short stories; and an animation of an object I made following my participation in an experimental archaeology workshop. Through creative practice I have worked at intersections between two fields of research – art and archaeology – in order to engage multifarious explorations of sited histories. During my fieldwork I developed a sited methodology that brought these two fields of knowledge and practice together, where writing, digging, restaging, and mark-making became methods of creative enquiry into the many histories present at the well excavation.