Station: [214] Cattle Burials in the Globular Amphora Culture

The grave of a young man and an adult man, lying opposite each other, feet touching was found in Zauschwitz near Leipzig.  Right beside them lay two oxen, aged between five and seven years, and a cow.  Both the humans and the animals had been assigned vessels, typical of the globular amphorae culture

The two oxen lay in prone position next to each other.  Distortions to their bones show that they had been used as draught animals. The cow was there to symbolise fertility and provide milk. This grave illustrates the enormous importance of animal husbandry in and around 3,500 BC. Larger herds maintained on cleared land and meadows meant a rise in the production of meat, milk and textiles.  Furthermore, their dung helped enrich the fields and improve yields. For the first time, too, ploughs were being used. Oxen drew the ploughs and carts.

Wheel Finds and the contemporary representations of carts with two or four wheels,and ploughmarks indicate that ploughs and carts with two or four wheels and rotating axles were present in almost every village from 3,000 BC onwards. Now that humans were able to deploy this sort of technology, they were capable of transforming less fertile and more remote regions into useful agricultural land. At the same time, exchanges between different cultures could now take place more swiftly.