In this study of the Middle Neolithic sites of Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder in the western Netherlands, the mortuary practices of these sites are discussed through the study of...Show moreIn this study of the Middle Neolithic sites of Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder in the western Netherlands, the mortuary practices of these sites are discussed through the study of archaeothanatology. Archaeothanatology combines extensive documentation of graves and human remains with biological and taphonomical knowledge to reconstruct prehistoric approaches to death. It has shown that the dead have been treated in multiple ways at Ypenburg and Schipluiden. While the most common positioning of the dead in a tightly flexed manner suggests that the dead could have been wrapped in an organic material, the addition of multiple individuals to one grave shows that the inhabitants had an exact way of knowing where they had buried their dead. The addition of scattered human remains among settlement refuse is an indication that a different mortuary treatment existed where individual skeletal elements seem to have been displaced by either cultural or natural taphonomic processes. All of these mortuary practices are paralleled in the contemporaneous Swifterbant and Michelsberg cultures in Northwestern Europe at sites such as Urk-E4, Schokland-P14 and Gougenheim. This attests to the longstanding contacts that have existed between peoples more Mesolithic in character and fully Neolithic peoples since the introduction of the new Neolithic lifestyle circa 5500-5000 BC. As new facets of life such as agriculture, stock breeding, pottery and permanent occupation were introduced, the mortuary practices seem to have also developed from the stretched burial position on the back to the tightly flexed fetal position. Perhaps the process of neolithisation is thus also reflected in the mortuary record.Show less
Archaeological research of the Iron Age (800 - 12 BC) at the Maashorst until now has been mainly focussed on the ritual landscape. Much information has been gathered on the burial mounds and...Show moreArchaeological research of the Iron Age (800 - 12 BC) at the Maashorst until now has been mainly focussed on the ritual landscape. Much information has been gathered on the burial mounds and urnfields such as Oss-Vorstengraf, Oss-Zevenbergen and Uden-Slabroekse heide. Remarkably, these grave fields contain relatively many 'rich' graves dating from the Early Iron Age (800 – 500 BC), where people of a noteworthy status had been buried. However, there is not much information available on where these people actually lived. Theory on how the settlement system of the Iron Age functioned has been researched in the past. Based on the idea of wandering farmsteads by Schinkel in 1998 the theoretical framework of the Iron Age settlement system was extended by several scholars on which the emphasis differs, but the practical and spatial division of the settlement system remains rather similar. The Iron Age settlement system consists of dispersed ‘wandering’ farmsteads that are situated within a celtic field system and within close vicinity of the burial site. This theoretical framework is extensively used for current research on Iron Age settlement systems. Therefore, the research question is: In what way are the existing theories on Iron Age settlement systems of use when researching the possibilities of habitation at the expressively rich burials of the Maashorst? Evidence for Iron Age settlements at the Maashorst is collected and mapped by using data on actual excavated archaeological sites, data collected by using Archis (ceramic finds and other archaeological traces of Iron Age habitation) and the analysis of two sites that were excavated by amateur archaeologists but were never examined any further. The collected evidence show a clear pattern of habitation on the edges of the Maashorst and on the sandy ridge at the present-day town of Heesch. Remarkably, the burial sites with rich burials are situated relatively remotely from this evidence. Together with the evidence of palynological research on the physical landscape at all of the burial sites at the Maashorst, it becomes clear that the burial grounds were not situated within close vicinity of the settlements and were situated in an open landscape of heath surrounded by forest. Therefore, it is suggested that the settlements at the Maashorst were part of a cultural landscape that was continually and intensively occupied. This habitation existed because of the specific physical features of the landscape and was reused and reordered on the basis of what the preceding generations left behind. This while following the lines of an increasingly structured and demarcated new perception of the landscape. In this way emphasizing the Iron Age settlement system on the physical and social meaning of the landscape and in so doing creating a more useful framework for future research at the Maashorst.Show less
Investigates predictive modeling for bronze hoards in the Netherlands (Drenthe). After investigating the issues and requirements for this, a model is constructed using fuzzy logic.
