Arch of Prehistory and Roman Europe

• Mesolithic site settlement evidence:

  • Bergumermeer, Friesland
  • Late Mesolithic fireplaces and tent locations re-interpreted as tree-falling pits
  • Natural stone places and tools found
• Holocene:

  • Starts in 9750 BCE as post-glacial period
  • Rivers affect landscape and water rises
  • Human civilisation flourishes with farming
  • Landscape type: low and wet parts
• Pleistocene:

  • Period of the Ice Ages, up to 9750 BCE
  • Last two ice ages: Saale and Weichsel
  • Saale ice glacier comes from the north, pushes through Netherlands creating sandy hills
  • Deposits include boulder, coversand, aeolian sand deposits, and ice-pushed ridges
  • Landscape type: high landscape and sandy soils
• Earliest burial evidence site:

  • Hardinxveld-Giessendam, Betuwe railway
  • From c. 5500 BCE
  • Oldest human skeleton named treintje with worn teeth and tree trunk canoe found
• ‘Typical’ find material of the Mesolithic period:

  • No pottery
  • Flint microliths (arrowheads, scrapers)
  • Hammerstones
  • Bone tools like harpoon heads
• Neolithisation processes:

  • Gradual transition from hunter-gatherers to sedentary farming
  • Spread from Middle/Near East (9500/8500 BCE) to Central/Western Europe (7th-9th millennium BCE)
  • Started in fertile crescent and reached Netherlands by 5500 BCE
• Early Neolithic settlements:

  • Linearbandkeramiek-culture (LBK) in southern Limburg
  • Characterised by material culture with bands around pots
  • Houses close together with ditches for protection
• Early Neolithic subsistence economy:

  • Domestication of cattle, sheep, goats, pig
  • Crops like einkorn, emmer, lentils
  • Hand tools, grinding stone, pottery with linear band
• Middle Neolithic key site:

  • Swifterbant group or Middle Neolithic A (4400-4000 BCE)
  • Village site in Flevoland with seasonal habitation on levees
  • Domesticated animals and local cereal consumption
• Differences between LBK and Swifterbant neolithisation models:

  • LBK more settled, Swifterbant a mix of lifestyles
  • LBK colonists, Swifterbant gradual neolithisation
• Middle Neolithic B burial evidence:

  • Megalith graves made of large stones
  • Majority buried in megalith collective burial chambers in Drente and Groningen
• Late Neolithic find material:

  • Stone, pottery, metal, spindle whorls
• Middle Neolithic B period settlement evidence:

  • Funnel beaker group in Drente and Groningen (3000 BCE)
  • Small agricultural settlements with funnel beaker pottery and flint axes
• Late Neolithic burial evidence:

  • Single grave culture with individual pit graves like in Dalfsen
• Innovations in Late Neolithic period:

  • Secondary products revolution: animal milk, dairy products, wool
  • Metallurgy: smelting and working of copper
• Middle to Late Neolithic Stein group settlement evidence:

  • Cultural group in Central Europe with limited dating evidence
  • Burial vaults and timber houses at Veldhoven
• Byre-house definition: building where man and animal live and work under the same roof

  • Dating: at least since the Middle Bronze Age (1800-1100 BCE)
  • Geographical distribution: Flanders (Belgium), the Netherlands, Denmark, NW Germany
• Archaeological arguments to recognize a house plan as a byre-house:

  • Analogy to historical farms in the Netherlands
  • Structural elements like livestock boxes and entrance in the short side
  • Remains of animals such as hoof imprints and phosphate stains
  • Byre pit with deep litter or straw pen
  • Appearance with a lowered surfaced pit
  • Example from Ezinge, Groningen with platforms/mounds for building byre-houses in the Iron Age
• Characteristics of Bronze Age house plan types:

  • Type Elp (1200-800 BCE): short bays in one section with the other side longer
  • Type Emmerhout: rounded corners and short ditches for livestock
  • South-Netherlands type: paired posts
• Livestock species in byres and their proportion:

  • Heavily dominated by cattle, surprisingly small
  • Reflects local economy partly based on geography
  • Reflects norms and values: animals as important possessions economically and in marriage dowries
• Elp excavation:

  • Found in Drenthe (1600-900 BCE) with 10 habitational phases
  • Multiple settlements with a cluster of buildings including byre-houses and barrows
  • Key site due to ancestral monument found, claiming territory
• West-Frisian landscape of settlements and land use:

  • Houses positioned on sandy levees, farms and fields on stream ridges/levees
  • Grazing pastures in lower flood basins
  • Ditches organized the landscape and drained excess water
  • Small Bronze Age barrows indicated intentional familial relations
• Dominant feature of Middle Bronze Age burial ritual:

  • Continuation of Late Neolithic barrow elevated with heathland sods
  • More elaborate with ring ditches
  • Example from Riethoven, Noord-Brabant with sandy barrow and postholes
• Treatment of the deceased in the Middle Bronze Age:

  • Transition from inhumation to cremation starting
  • Urnfield period in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age
  • Examples from Elp, Drenthe and Gasteren showing family and two-period barrows
• Presence of grave goods in Middle Bronze Age burial ritual:

  • Rather poor burials with some exceptions
  • Example from Drouwen, Drenthe with burial of a chief with weapons under a barrow
• Proportion of the community represented in Middle Bronze Age burial ritual:

  • Most of the community represented, with better-preserved burials of wealthier individuals
• Bronze definition and origin:

  • Alloy of copper and tin, imported from further South
  • Implications for bronze tools found in the Low Countries, with axes being the most common tool
• Dominant theory behind bronze exchange:

  • Traditional idea of travelling smiths
  • Modern ideology of gift exchange between local leaders to establish relations and prestige
• Activities informed by bronze material culture:

  • Casting moulds for local production of bronze objects like axes, chisels, and sickles
  • Jewellery like spectacle fibulae from West Frisia, symbolizing high status
  • Weapons like ceremonial swords used in ritual contexts to communicate leadership and warfare
• Traditional and novel interpretations of bronze depositions:

  • Traditional debate between ritual and profane depositions
  • Fontijn's concept of 'Economies of destruction' challenges the ritual interpretation
  • Selective depositions based on cultural rules expressing values and cosmology in different contexts like settlements, barrows, and wet areas
• Iron Age periodization in NW Europe:

  • Urnfield Period (Hallstatt): 800-500 BCE
  • La Tène period: 500-19 BCE
• Central Europe (Reinecke) and Low Countries periodization:

  • Hallstatt C: 800-660 BCE
  • Hallstatt D: 660-480 BCE
  • La Tène A: 480-390 BCE
  • La Tène B: 390-250 BCE
  • La Tène C: 250-100 BCE
  • La Tène D: 100-19 BCE
  • Early Iron Age: 800-500 BCE
  • Middle Iron Age: 500-250 BCE
  • Late Iron Age: 250-19 BCE
• Unsettled settlements in the Early Iron Age:

  • Farmyards from Late Bronze Age and Early- and Middle Iron Age
  • Single phase, diffused living (not clustered)
  • Early Iron Age habitation: farmyards with outbuildings (may not function all at the same time)

  Changes in the Late Iron Age:

  • More fixed habitation, clustering
• Definition of 'Celtic fields':

  • Extensive system due to poor soil
  • Complex of small fields extended over time
  • New fields used and old fields regenerated
• Characteristics of Celtic fields:

  • Banks are c. 40 x 40 m
  • Found using LIDAR image and aerial photography
  • E.g. Zeijen (Drente): c. 75 ha, developed over centuries
• An Urnfield:

  • Cremation ritual where body burned on pyre and collected in urn
  • Grave gifts in small part of burials
  • E.g. Someren-Waterdael (Noord Brabant): Early to Middle Iron Age, circular ditches, long barrows, square ditch structures
• Using Urnfields for population reconstructions:

  • Indication of size of community territories
  • Formula: P = k x (D x e) / t
  • P = population, k = correction factor, D = number of buried people, e = life expectancy, t = period of use
• Characteristics of 'vorstengraven = princely burials':

  • Rich 'grave gifts' from Hallstatt C Period
  • Local characteristics: elite culture of feasting and martial values
  • Supra-regional characteristics: connected to wider community
• Oppidum characteristics:

  • Large fortified centers with proto-urban characteristics
  • Concentration of people, planned layout, economic, religious, and political functions
• Settlements in the Low Countries:

  • Simple farmyards, more clustering of habitation
  • Byre house tradition continued