Amelinghausen is a municipality in the district of Lüneburg in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is also the seat of the collective municipality (Samtgemeinde) of Amelinghausen. Geography The municipality lies in the middle of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park. East of Amelinghausen the upper reaches of the River Lopau are impounded to form the Lopausee, a lake that is used by tourists. Municipal divisions The villages in the municipality are: Amelinghausen Dehnsen Etzen History The village of Amelinghausen was first mentioned in the records on 22 May 1293. The beginnings of settlement began, however, in the New Stone Age. The first people in this region were migrant hunters and gatherers around 15,000 B. C. They followed reindeer herds coming from the west, for which this area, the present-day Lüneburg Heath, offered a new habitat thanks to its more moderate climate (having hitherto being the Ice Age). Thousands of years later, about 3,700 B. C., the first humans settled here. The first settlers of the region established themselves on the banks of the River Luhe. As a result of communication with the folk to the south they had already acquired a knowledge of farming. Surviving grave sites are witnesses to the permanent settlement of the present-day Lüneburg Heath from the New Bronze AGe (1100–800 B. C.), through the Early Iron Age (600–800 B. C.) and the Pre-Roman Iron Age (600 B. C. – birth of Christ), into the Migration Period (2nd–6th century A. D.). One of the best-known grave sites, that like almost all of them dates to the New Stone Age, lies in a small area of restored heathland and is known today as the Oldendorfer Totenstatt. Here several of the different types of grave are located together(tumuli, Urnfield gravesites and dolmens) and may still be viewed today. The name of the village is derived from Bishop Amelung of Verden. Amelung was supposed to have venerated Hippolytus of Rome and named the church after him. According to research into the origins of placenames, the ending -hausen indicates it is one of the more recent settlements (after 800 A. D.)in the Bardengau, because placename endings like -burg, -hagen, -ingen, -rode or even -husen (-hausen) first appeared during the Frankish period. The estates of the bishop, including the so-called Junkernhof farm, did not return after his death in 962 to the Bishopric of Verden, but were incorporated by his brother, Hermann Billung, (died