Autumn is particularly exciting for a couple from Kottgeisering.
Because when the farmers have harvested their fields, things only get interesting for them.
Kottgeisering -
Autumn is always particularly exciting for the amateur archaeologists Dorlis and Roman Bischof.
Then the two experienced field climbers set off from Kottgeisering and hope to find something that a person last held in their hands a few thousand years ago.
The Bischofs are completely different from normal walkers: Instead of paved paths with a view of the alpine panorama, the field climbers - as the name suggests - cross-country, always have their eyes on the ground and their shoes are generally totally dirty.
"When the farmers have harvested and plowed their fields, as they are now, it becomes interesting for us," reports Dorlis Bischof.
Like recently on a field near Eismerszell (municipality of Moorenweis).
Look, don't dig or scratch is the motto - and a probe is certainly not used.
The landowner must also have been asked beforehand.
"If the ground is particularly hard, should the frost dissolve the chunks or a heavy rain hit it, then it washes away the relics of human settlement," explains her husband Roman.
A trained eye and, as with the bishops, 15 years of experience increase the chances of finding something.
The two are not so interested in artefacts from Roman times, they are focused on prehistory and early history and are therefore members of the working group of the same name in the Historisches Verein (HV) Fürstenfeldbruck.
So the older the better.
As far as the Middle Stone Age, the finds that have been unearthed in the district reach on the Eismerszeller Acker until the New Stone Age, around 5500 years before Christ.
Various flint stones in flat form (plate silex) or radiolarite, a reddish sedimentary rock from this area, were the yield this time - but no ceramic shards.
Common finds from the district are arrowheads, stone axes, stone tools, scratches, drills, blades, and shards of ceramic containers such as pots, bowls and mugs.
“You shouldn't be fooled by colored glass blocks from the chewing gum machine, which probably came into the field over the farmer's dung heap,” says Roman Bischof.
On the other hand, a tiny bluish ring could be part of an antique pearl necklace that could have been made in the prehistoric glass workshop in Inning am Ammersee (district of Starnberg).
The bishops meticulously catalog every find in a folder, in monthly meetings (at least these took place before the corona pandemic) they exchange ideas with other experts from the historical association.
Of course, everything has to be submitted to the State Office for Monument Preservation, Department of Ground Heritage Preservation, which feeds the data into the archaeological Bavaria Atlas.
As a rule, however, the find remains with the finder, if only because the office does not have that much space to store it.
More important finds, on the other hand, are exhibited in the Fürstenfeldbruck City Museum or are loaned out in Germany and abroad.
"A box full of finds has come together over the past three years," reports Dorlis Bischof, who is often accompanied by her 17-year-old granddaughter Lena when searching for the fields, "because she finds it so exciting".
But often you wouldn't find anything for months.
Or not what we were hoping for, as with the extensive excavation last summer near Jesenwang.
"Barrows testify that people were settled here, so there should still be a lot - but you just haven't found it yet," says Roman Bischof, shrugging his shoulders.
The consolation: results are often more important than findings.
Occasionally Dorlis and Roman Bischof also carry something back to the field - or at least on the path next to it.
Namely, when it turns out during washing and the subsequent, more detailed examination of the object at home that it is "nothing".
Then the material should at least go back to where it came from.
Note A 40-minute film about the teaching excavation in Jesenwang last summer can be found on the Internet at www.historischer-verein-ffb.de.
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