Throughout northern Europe, thousands of burial mounds were erected in the third millennium BCE. Starting in the Corded Ware culture, individual people were being buried underneath these mounds,... Show moreThroughout northern Europe, thousands of burial mounds were erected in the third millennium BCE. Starting in the Corded Ware culture, individual people were being buried underneath these mounds, often equipped with an almost rigid set of grave goods. This practice continued in the second half of the third millennium BCE with the start of the Bell Beaker phenomenon. In large parts of Europe, a ‘typical’ set of objects was placed in graves, known as the ‘Bell Beaker package’. This book focusses on the significance and meaning of these Late Neolithic graves. Why were people buried in a seemingly standardized manner, what did this signify and what does this reveal about these individuals, their role in society, their cultural identity and the people that buried them? By performing in-depth analyses of all the individual grave goods from Dutch graves, which includes use-wear analysis and experiments, the biography of grave goods is explored. How were they made, used and discarded? Subsequently the nature of these graves themselves are explored as contexts of deposition, and how these are part of a much wider ‘sacrificial landscape’. A novel and comprehensive interpretation is presented that shows how the objects from graves were connected with travel, drinking ceremonies and maintaining long-distance relationships. Show less
The European Corded Ware Culture, and the Single Grave Culture, are mostly known by the funerary architecture and the depositions of goods. The Netherlands is no exception. Archaeological... Show moreThe European Corded Ware Culture, and the Single Grave Culture, are mostly known by the funerary architecture and the depositions of goods. The Netherlands is no exception. Archaeological excavations of domestic settlements are a recent phenomenon, and the number of excavated sites is still low. Although large-scale excavations of Single Grave Culture settlements took place in the Netherlands in the second half of the 20th century, few results have been published. The project aim to study three of these excavated sites: Keinsmerbrug, Mienakker and Zeewijk. This is the first time that three settlements were studied in its totality by a multidisciplinary team. My PhD research combines technological and functional analysis of Single Grave artefacts (lithic material, the bone and amber implements) from the three selected sites. Tools are understood as the material reflection of the technological development of the prehistoric communities, as well as the carriers of social knowledge and practices. Through the application of these methods it was possible to reconstruct economic practices at the sites and reconstruct subsistence strategies; understand the role played by tools and by sites, and improve the knowledge of the Late Neolithic in Noord-Holland and Europe. Show less
