Lederfunde der Vorrömischen Eisenzeit und Römischen Kaiserzeit aus Nordwestdeutschland

In the century of their exploitation and investigation, the north-west German bog zones have produced a multitude of leather artefacts of the pre-Roman Iron Age and Roman Imperial times. Based on these finds, this study gives an exhaustive overview of leather as a raw material and its treatment and use in the Barbaric sphere. Many technical analyses are complemented by a study on the development of tanning. Despite the small number of individual finds, nearly all aspects of human life are touched upon such as garments, transport, armour, and settlement waste. The focus is placed in the fields of chronology and of the distribution in comparison to areas such as Denmark, the Netherlands, and the Roman Empire. On the basis of the bulk of settlement refuse from the terp settlement at Feddersen Wierde it was possible – by strontium isotope analyses – to determine the origin of animals whose skin was used for leather. The volume ends with a juxtaposition of contemporaneous textile craftsmanship in order to establish the advanced state of leather working during the pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Imperial period in north-western Germany.