Thread by @MikeStuchbery_

I've been in the university town of Halle this weekend, in the German state of Sachsen-Anhalt, specifically to visit @MuseumHalle - home of some of my favourite archaeological finds.

Let me take you through some of the stuff I saw... 1/

The state of Sachsen-Anhalt has an unusually high density of prehistoric sights and finds - thus, it's fitting that it had Germany's first museum devoted to pre-history - we're talking back to the time of Neanderthal man... /2

Fittingly, the museum has skeletons of mammoths and aurochs - the latter, like bulls - if you gave them steroids and a hair-trigger temper.

It's not until you're up next to these remains that you realise just how terrifying it must have been trying to take one down. /3

Wanna see some of the oldest glue in the world? Around 125,000 years ago, our distant ancestors were roasting birch bark to produce tar, that they'd chew into the appropriate shape - this was used to affix arrowheads, etc.

Took a lot of work to identify these! /4

Much closer to the present, @MuseumHalle also holds the remains of the 'Shamaness of Bad Dürrenberg', around 8,000 years old.

Spinal deformities led to neurological conditions that her and her people probably interpreted as a connection with the gods.

Amazing head-dress! /5

Other significant human remains held in the museum are the Eulau burials. Around 4,600 years ago, 13 individuals met a violent end in a raid. They were buried with love and care by survivors.

The four in the middle? The first 'nuclear family' ever discovered buried together. /6

The absolute treasure of @MuseumHalle is the Nebra Sky Disk - an artefact I can't believe isn't more known in the Anglosphere, but I digress...

I couldn't photograph it, but the way they exhibit it is astonishing.

More to come from me - including a long-read - on this. /7

One of the newer finds in @MuseumHalle is this skeleton of a (young?) woman from around 1550BCE, found near the town of Rochlitz in 2008.

The brass headband, while looking like something from Forever 21, indicates she was a figure of some status! /8

Finally, you've got to come see the astonishing amount of brass swords, shields, axes and suckles they recovered from sacrificial hoards - a way of giving back to the gods.

One thing is for sure - these were industrious, intelligent, talented peoples! /9

I'm back in Halle on Friday to interview the man, the myth, the legend, Professor Harald Meller - he not only worked out the use of the Nebra Sky Disk, he recovered it from black marketeers in a sting!

Really looking forward to it, and I hope you enjoy the story to come... /FIN