Brandwijk-Kerkhof

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Brandwijk-Kerkhof is a Mesolithic / Neolithic archaeological site on a former river dune north of the Meuse and south of the Rhine in the Netherlands , belonging to the Swifterbant culture between 4600 and 3630 BC. Is assigned. Brandwijk was excavated in 1991 by Annelou L. Van Gijn and M. Verbruggen.

The square was used seasonally as a hunter-gatherer or fisherman's camp and provides information about the transition in the Swifterbant culture from hunter-gatherer to a culture that increasingly includes vegetable and animal domestication. Attempts to observe such a (voluntary) acculturation process in recent cultures were not successful, however, as the existence of Stone Age parallel societies also indicates .

Finds

Among the animal bone finds from Brandwijk, small wild mammals and fish dominate, with dogs , cattle , sheep / goats and pigs being sprinkled into different layers, resulting in a creeping Neolithic culture as it is represented on various occasions (Ingo Bading: "4.100 v. Ztr. - Tertiary Neolithization in the Alpine, Baltic, North Sea and Northern Black Sea regions ”), as contradicts the same as the seasonal, possibly temporary use of hunting stations observed in Neolithic cultures. Wild plants include u. a. Blackberry , crab apple , blackthorn , water chestnut and hawthorn .

From the to 4220 and 3940 BC At levels dated to the 4th century BC, crops such as charred emmer (Triticum dicoccon) and naked barley (Hordeum vulgare var. Nudum) seeds and unburned poppy seeds (Papaver somniferum) also appear. This is likely to represent the adoption of native crops in the Dutch wetlands.

Although it is clear that the users of Brandwijk had access to crops during the later stages, it is questionable whether these crops were grown on the site. No flint inventories with a sickle shine as plant residue and thus as evidence of grain harvests were discovered. Only a fragment of a grindstone was found. Other sites at the transition to plant cultivation (here around 4000 BC) are Hazendonk and Swifterbant.

Delay in agriculture

Pottery and other cultural features of the LBK came around 5300 BC. In the southeast of the Netherlands (in the province of Limburg). But cultivated plants were only found on Swifterbant sites from 4370 BC at the earliest. Found. However, the exact date is currently unknown. Why arable farming was not adapted earlier in the Dutch wetlands after the introduction by the LBK is an open question. Possible reasons are: • 1. environmental conditions in the wetlands, • 2. the multitude of food sources in the wetlands made agriculture unnecessary and / or • 3. cultural and ideological resistance to change. • 4. In view of the small number of sites, a research gap can also distort the picture. The successors of the Swifterbant culture are the Hazendonk group and the Vlaardingen culture . The latter was also present as a semi-agrarian culture group in the west of the Netherlands.

literature

  • Welmoed A. Out: Growing habits? Delayed introduction of crop cultivation at marginal Neolithic wetland sites. In: Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. Vol. 17, Supplement 1, 2008, ISSN  0939-6314 , pp. 131-138, doi : 10.1007 / s00334-008-0152-z .
  • Welmoed A. Out: Neolithisation at the site Brandwijk-Kerkhof, the Netherlands: natural vegetation, human impact and plant food subsistence. In: Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. Vol. 17, No. 1, 2008, pp. 25-39, doi : 10.1007 / s00334-007-0108-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Swifterbant is a district of the municipality Dronten in the province of Flevoland . Swifterbant was best known for the excavation of the Neolithic Swifterbant culture.
  2. ↑ Brigitte Volkhausen: Ethnographic parallels and comparisons to the process of Neolithization (= European university publications. Series 38: Archeology. 49). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1994, ISBN 3-631-47112-2 (also: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1992).
  3. ↑ Question from a San of the Kalahari: why should we plant?

Coordinates: 51 ° 53 ′ 28 "  N , 4 ° 47 ′ 37"  E