At Randau, an outskirt of Magdeburg, artefacts of Neolithic origin were found and secured during World War II. In the late 1990s, the idea came up to reconstruct the place. The city Magdeburg offered workforce and the Arbeitsamt covered costs.
Soon an Association was found who is now running the archaeological open-air museum. The support from the population of Randau is important and it includes the theatre association, the local fire department, the army and local craftspeople.
The over 2 hectares large Stone Age Village is situated along a popular cycle road Hamburg-Dresden on the right bank of the Elbe. One of the Randau "Schönfelder" longhouses measures (LxBxH) 21.3 x 5.5 x 5.6 m. There are no windows in the wattle and daub walls – the estimate is that up to 30 people might have been living in this house. The original house is 4,500 years old. The village also has a reconstruction of a Linear Bandceramic (LBK) house of 7,500 years ago. Besides that the village has a palisade and small other buildings. It was attempted to build everything using original materials and techniques – the dimensions still impress today. The wooden constructions show that the Neolithic construction techniques using post into the earth were firm – the major way of construction has only been replaced in the Middle Ages.
