Burial mound in section (3D)
About this app
A Bronze Age burial mound grows over 3,500 years: central grave, mound, two secondary burials, robbers’ shaft, plough. One quarter is cut away — you read the order from the cut edges, not from the depth. With a Harris matrix to order the features yourself.
With explain mode: an AI tutor walks you through the app, points out what matters in the scene and answers your questions.
One mound, many generations
Burial mounds of the Bronze Age and the Hallstatt period are rarely just one grave. First comes the central grave, often a timber chamber with a stone packing, and the mound is heaped over it. Centuries later people dig new graves into it from the top, the secondary burials. Robbers go for the rich central grave, and in modern times the plough wears the top down. Which layer is older is told by the law of cross-cutting: whatever cuts a layer is younger than that layer. Superposition, where higher means younger, only holds as long as nobody has dug.
What the app shows
A block of ground with a typical burial mound as found on the Middle Swabian Alb in Germany, not a real site. One quarter is cut away, and the two cut walls are sections like an archaeological drawing: limestone, loam, the old ground surface as a dark band, two mound mantles, stone kerb, central grave with skeleton and grave goods, two secondary burials, robbers’ shaft and plough zone. A time slider builds the mound in eight steps, from about 1600 BC to an excavation with the quarter method.
Try it yourself
Play the history and watch the depth of secondary burial 2: it lies deeper than secondary burial 1 and is still younger. Move the cut with the handle and see the graves disappear from the section. Use the depth to leave a horizontal planum. In the Order panel you put the five features in the right order; the app checks it against the law of cross-cutting and draws the Harris matrix.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the law of cross-cutting in archaeology?
- The law of cross-cutting says that a feature cutting a layer or another feature is younger than what it cuts. A pit dug through a heaped mound can only have been made once the mound was there. This gives an order even when a younger feature lies deeper than an older one.
- What is a Harris matrix?
- A Harris matrix is a diagram of the stratigraphic sequence of an excavation, named after Edward C. Harris. Every box stands for a layer or feature, every line for an observation such as “cuts” or “covers”. The youngest is on top. This gives a relative chronology without any dates.
- What is the quarter method for burial mounds?
- In the quarter method a burial mound is divided into four quarters by two axes. Two opposite quarters are dug away while the baulks between them stay standing. On their walls the section through the centre of the mound can be seen and drawn before the rest is excavated.
- What can I do with the app “Burial mound in section”?
- You build a typical burial mound in eight time steps, rotate the cut-open block of ground in 3D, move the position and depth of the cut and tap features in the section. In the Order panel you put the central grave, the mantle, two secondary burials and the robbers’ shaft in the right order and get a Harris matrix.
Subject: History
More from History
- Radiocarbon dating and the Hallstatt plateau
- Invention family tree
- Globe of History (3D)
- Settlement chamber on the Swabian Alb (3D)
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