Leiden University Student Repository

Broek, Alexandra van den (2011)

De culturele biografie van het grafveld Slabroekse Heide. Een grafveld op de Maashorst uit de prehistorie en Romeinse tijd

Master thesis | Archaeology (MA/MSc)

In the summer of 2010, the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University conducted an excavation at Slabroekse Heide, in the south of the Netherlands. Earlier excavations in 1923 and 2005 had uncovered burial mounds dating to the bronze age, the iron age and the Roman period. During the 2010 excavations several „new‟ burial mounds were discovered. Despite the poor preservation, due to levelling and ploughing of the ground in modern times, some cremation graves and an inhumation grave were found. The so-called „Princess grave‟ is the rich inhumation grave of a woman who probably played an important role in the affairs of her community. The oldest elements of the grave field are burial mounds dating back to the middle or late bronze age. In the early iron age, an urnfield was constructed around the mounds, consisting of a large number of smaller mounds. Their positioning indicates a positive appreciation of the earlier graves. The urnfield is divided in two parts. The eastern part...Show moreIn the summer of 2010, the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University conducted an excavation at Slabroekse Heide, in the south of the Netherlands. Earlier excavations in 1923 and 2005 had uncovered burial mounds dating to the bronze age, the iron age and the Roman period. During the 2010 excavations several „new‟ burial mounds were discovered. Despite the poor preservation, due to levelling and ploughing of the ground in modern times, some cremation graves and an inhumation grave were found. The so-called „Princess grave‟ is the rich inhumation grave of a woman who probably played an important role in the affairs of her community. The oldest elements of the grave field are burial mounds dating back to the middle or late bronze age. In the early iron age, an urnfield was constructed around the mounds, consisting of a large number of smaller mounds. Their positioning indicates a positive appreciation of the earlier graves. The urnfield is divided in two parts. The eastern part contains smaller mounds with little space between them; the western part has larger, more dispersed mounds. The meaning or function of this division is not clear. Two rows of poles were uncovered in 2005 and 2010. The longest of these may be related to this division; it does not extend, however, across even half the grave field. A more plausible explanation is that the rows were constructed in relationship to individual grave monuments, perhaps connecting them to lower-lying ritual wet places. The prehistoric use of the grave field ends with the construction of at least two grave monuments in the middle iron age. In the Roman period the grave field was used once more, but only ten graves from this period have been found. Again there seems to be a positive appreciation of the older monuments. In this period the site appears to have been used only for a short time, and by a small amount of people. No traces of habitation have been found in the vicinity from either the Roman period or the iron age. But it is likely that the people who buried their dead at Slabroekse Heide, lived on the flanks of the valley of the nearby stream known as Kraaienloop. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century, a long ditch was dug through the prehistoric gravefield which served to protect or defend the land. Apart from that, the burial mounds survived more or less intact until the early 1900‟s when the grave field was levelled and developed as farmland. In 2011, several grave monuments have been reconstructed based on the results of the 2010 excavation. Thus, the grave field is now visible in the landscape once more.Show less

Author

Broek, Alexandra van den

Faculty

Faculty of Archaeology

Supervisors

Fokkens, H.
Jansen, R.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

nl