Leese is a municipality in the district of Nienburg, in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

History

Leese was one of the earliest settlements in the Middle Weser Region. Around 20 tumulus graves are found, the oldest dating to about 1800 BCE. The urnfield graves in the so-called "small field" of Leese were excavated under the auspices of the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (Lower Saxony Bureau for Cultural Heritage) between 1978 and 1980 turned out to be the largest graveyard of urn burials in the pre-Roman

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

of northern Germany, with 1100 burials. An urn is represented in the lower part of the town's coat of arms. At the time of the early

Roman empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

, the area was occupied by the German tribe of

Angrivarii The Angrivarii (or ''Angrivari'') were a Germanic people of the early Roman Empire, who lived in what is now northwest Germany near the middle of the Weser river. They were mentioned by the Roman authors Tacitus and Ptolemy. They were part of the ...

, to the south of the

Cherusci The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germany in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered themsel ...

References

Nienburg (district) {{Nienburg-geo-stub