Prehistoric/Early
Times Romans/Germanics
Early
Middle Ages
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Early
and prehistoric times (600.000-100 a.C.)
Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron
Age
The Beginning of human life (600.000-10.000 AD)
During this period on earth, there were the continents and oceans, plants and animals that we know today, and first signs of human life. The final chapter in the history of the Earth is at the same time the first chapter in the history of mankind.
Therefore we have two names for this period: in terms of earth history we call it the Pleistocene, the Ice Age, which was actually an alternation of four ice and three warm periods. In terms of political and cultural history we speak of the Old Stone Age or Paleolithic.
Historians divide the Stone Age as follows:
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age): 600,000 - 100,000 BC, Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age): 100,000 - 50,000 BC, Neolithic (Late Stone Age): 50,000 - 10,000 BC. The Neanderthal man lived during the third period, in the Mesolithic. Very early on, there were human beings in and around the area of the Seven Mountains. In Oberkassel (left), the bones of a man, a woman and a dog where found who must have lived around 14,000 AD.
Mesolithic (10.000-5000 AD)
A more favorable climate brought better living conditions. The people settled mostly by the coasts or on the banks of rivers and seas. But there was not enough to eat for everyone, so they lived together only in small family groups. Tools from that age were found close to Heisterbacherrott.
Neolithic (5,000-1,800 BC) and Bronze Age (1,800-800 BC)
Different people migrated through Europe, met and gradually settled down. But unlike the well documented Oriental advanced civilizations, they remain anonymous "people" to us whom we describe by the jewelry, utensils and weapons made by them, or by the way they buried their dead. The Petersberg mountain and its surroundings were settled early; tools from the Late Stone Age and parts of axes and spears from the Bronze Age were found. Maybe the "Mondscheinwiese" (Moonlight Lawn) was the location of a prehistoric village?
Iron Age (800-0 BC)
In the historiography about the rise of Rome (from the 5th century onwards) we do not meet anonymous "people" any more, but tribes and civilizations to which we can assign specific cultures (and cultural regions), for example the Hallstatt culture (as of 800) and later the La Tène culture influenced by the Celts (as of 450 BC). Only in the first century BC, by the time of the Roman campaigns to Gaul and Germania, the first "Barbarians" are mentioned by their names in the history books.
The settlement on the Petersberg
There
were settlements on the Petersberg mountain and between the mountains
Petersberg and Nonnenstromberg. Part of the circular settlement wall around
the Petersberg plateau (La Tène culture, around 100 AD) still remains.
The Seven Mountains were situated in the border zone between the Teutonic civilization in the north and the Celtic civilization in the South. Therefore, there may not be an answer beyond all doubt to the question about who lived in and around the Seven Mountains back then, and who built this circular wall around the Petersberg plateau. On one hand, it is of Celtic type, and Celtic golden coins were found in the nearby village of Stieldorf. On the other hand, Caesar only mentions Sugambriens living in this region. There could have been some sort of cultural exchange between the Teutons and the Celts, or - more likely maybe - Teuton raids into Celtic territory.
