Construction workers building a wind farm in Lower Saxony have uncovered a rare collection of Bronze Age jewelry alongside evidence of prehistoric settlements in Germany dating back more than 3,000 years.
The discovery came near Wolfenbüttel, where archaeologists examined nearly 93,000 square meters (about 23 acres) of land between August 2024 and September 2025.
The Bronze Age jewelry belonged to at least three women. The collection includes decorated neck collars, arm spirals, sheet metal ornaments, and at least two disc pins, all dated to between 1500 and 1300 BC.
The most striking piece is a necklace strung with more than 156 amber beads. It is the largest single Bronze Age amber find ever recorded in Lower Saxony.
Rare Bronze Age jewelry surfaces beneath wind farm site
The artifacts came to light during foundation work for one of 19 wind turbines being built by SAB WindTeam GmbH. At the first pass of the excavator, workers spotted bronze and amber objects clustered closely together.
Specialists from the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation stepped in immediately, lifting the fragile pieces along with the surrounding soil for careful extraction under laboratory conditions.
Researchers believe the treasure was a deliberate deposit made by the local elite, likely for religious reasons.
A 2025 study from the University of Aarhus found that amber held a central role in a long-distance trade network during the early and middle Bronze Age, connecting southern Scandinavia to Assur. That context adds weight to the amber necklace’s significance.
Jewelry points to prehistoric settlements in Germany
The excavation also revealed layers of human activity spanning thousands of years. In the southern section of the site, archaeologists uncovered two well-preserved house floor plans belonging to the Linear Pottery Culture, the earliest farming culture in Lower Saxony.
These structures offer new clues about the region’s first known settlements from around the mid-6th millennium BC.
From later centuries, several pits held what appear to be intentionally arranged groupings of buried dogs, Roman-style pottery, and metal objects.
Roman-era pits and an ancient comb add to the story
Researchers also found a nearly complete three-layer comb from the 4th or 5th century AD with circular eye decoration and bronze rivets. Such combs were personal items typically placed on funeral pyres and almost never survive in one piece.
This is the first Bronze Age hoard found in the northern Harz foreland region of Lower Saxony since 1967 and the only one excavated using modern scientific methods.
Researchers from TU Clausthal are now planning material analyses. Conservation and study of the objects are just getting underway.
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