Udelgard Körber-Grohne

Udelgard Körber-Grohne (July 11, 1923, in Hamburg – November 6, 2014, in Wiesensteig) was a German archaeobotanist.

Early life and education Körber-Grohne was born in Hamburg. Her father Ernst Grohne was an archaeologist and museum curator in Bremen. She studied biology at university, graduating from Braunschweig Technical University in 1948.

Career In 1949 she began work at the Lower Saxony State Institute for Marsh and Wound Research in Wilhelmshaven, where she studied archaeology and geology of the Lower Saxony coastal area. Methodological advances included the identification of cereal pollen. She took over the archeobotanical analysis in the archaeological excavation project of the settlement Feddersen Wierde where she studied a large assemblage of waterlogged plant remains. This study was pioneering in the development of identification methods and the identification of past plant communities on the basis of archaeobotanical remains, the publication of which "set new standards for archaeobotany". During this period she worked on a range of archaeological projects in south-west Germany, including archaeobotanical remains from the Roman castellum of Welzheim, and from the grave of a Halstatt chief at Hochdorf. She developed methodologies for the identification of ancient textile fragments, including a study of Viking finds from Haithabu.

Körber-Grohne retired in 1988, after which she continued to produce academic research. A key study was on the history of cherries, damsons, plums and sloes.

Körber-Grohne was a member of the German Archaeological Institute.

Selected publications

1979. Nutzpflanzen und Umwelt im römischen Germanien. (Kleine Schriften zur Kenntnis der römischen Besetzungsgeschichte Südwestdeutschlands, Bd. 21) Stuttgart. 1987. Nutzpflanzen in Deutschland. Kulturgeschichte und Biologie. Theiss, Stuttgart. 1996. Pflaumen, Kirschpflaumen, Schlehen. Heutige Pflanzen und ihre Geschichte seit der Frühzeit. Theiss, Stuttgart. 1998. Geobotanische Untersuchungen auf der Feddersen Wierde. (Feddersen Wierde, Bd. 1), Steiner Franz Verlag.