Daily life at the Heuneburg during the 6th century BCE

At the Heuneburg in present-day southwestern Germany, houses, workshops and storage buildings reveal a community whose everyday work extended beyond its fortified plateau. Archaeology offers glimpses of cooking, making goods and obtaining supplies, but conditions changed substantially during this century.

A community beyond the hilltop

During the first half of the 6th century BCE, the outer settlement extended over more than 100 hectares. Archaeologists identify districts divided by banks and ditches, with enclosed farmsteads beside one another. The state archaeological research project estimates that approximately 4,000–5,000 people may have lived across the upper town, lower town and outer settlement together. This is an archaeological estimate, not a recorded census. Heuneburg outer-settlement research.

Homes, stores and workshops

Around 600 BCE, relatively small buildings stood in rows on the plateau. Dwellings, workshops and stores occupied the same closely built environment. Hearths in houses provided places for preparing food. Smaller structures with substantial corner posts are interpreted as raised stores, probably intended to protect supplies from rodents. Their individual contents cannot now be reconstructed; the plateau itself lacked agricultural land, so food had to come from outside it.

Craft finds and workshop furnaces indicate skilled production, including metalworking. Making and maintaining objects formed part of the settlement’s working life alongside provisioning households. These remains do not establish a universal division of tasks by age or gender. The Heuneburg craft quarter.

What a reconstructed house can show

One building dated to around 600 BCE is interpreted as a dwelling. Its post positions suggest a roof supported along its ridge and a possible division of the interior. The museum’s furnished reconstruction helps visitors imagine domestic space, including textile work, but its arrangement is illustrative: it is not an intact ancient household preserved with all its possessions. Distinguishing excavated ground plans from modern furnishings prevents a plausible reconstruction from becoming a claim about every family. The reconstructed dwelling.

Food and drink through pottery residues

A study of residues in 133 pottery vessels spans the late 7th to 5th centuries BCE; its results should not all be treated as a single 6th-century menu. In its 6th-century discussion, the researchers identify fermented drinks, including grape wine, in locally handmade vessels from the plateau, lower town and outer settlement. They interpret the wine as probably imported from the Mediterranean.

Beeswax traces are less straightforward: they could reflect hive products added to food or drink, or wax used to waterproof pottery. Residues reveal some vessel contents, not complete recipes, portion sizes or how frequently every household consumed them. Rageot and colleagues’ pottery study.

Life changed within the century

The pottery study places a major fire around 540–530 BCE. Afterwards, an earth-and-timber defence replaced the mudbrick wall, while more scattered buildings replaced the earlier rows on the plateau. The early-century town plan therefore cannot represent the whole century. Settlement chronology in the pottery study.

The state archaeological project dates abandonment of the outer settlement to around 530 BCE. This marks a substantial change in where people lived, although the evidence presented here does not tell us where each displaced household went. Outer-settlement chronology.

Explore the wider period

Compare this settlement with daily life in Hallstatt during the early Iron Age, or browse ancient daily life locations. Comparisons provide context; they do not establish identical customs at different sites.