Ernst Sprockhoff


Ernst Sprockhoff was a German prehistorian and inventor of the Sprockhoff numbering system for megalithic monuments in Germany.

Life

Sprockhoff was born on 6 August 1892 in Berlin. He became a teacher and also studied prehistory. He graduated in 1924 from the University of Königsberg. From 1926 to 1928 he was employed at the Provincial Museum of Hanover, from 1928 to 1935 at the Romano-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz.
Sprockhoff was a member of Der Stahlhelm and joined the SA before 1933, the year of the Machtergreifung by the Nazis. In 1933 he was a member of the National Socialist Teachers League, in 1937 after the freeze on admissions also of the Nazi Party. From 1935 to 1945 he was the first director of the Romano-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt and, from 1947, professor of European Pre- and Early History at the University of Kiel.
In 1922 Sprockhoff became a member of the Reichsbund für Deutsche Vorgeschichte, in 1931 an associate member and in 1934 a full member of the German Archaeological Institute.
He died in Kiel on 1 October 1967.

Sprockhoff numbers

Sprockhoff recorded about 900 German megalith structures in a sequentially numbered catalogue. The so-called Sprockhoff number is still used to refer to these sites today.

Publications