Historical story

Rare prehistoric grave proves long transition phase to agriculture

Archaeologists discovered a family grave of 5600 years old during excavations in Tiel. Remains of family graves from this period are extremely rare. Burial together was more something for farming communities outside our river area.

The family grave was found during archaeological research for the expansion of business park Medel near Tiel. Traces of a small settlement also surfaced. At least thirty meters away from the grave field was a large house, in which several families probably lived. A river ran between them, in which waste such as remains of flint and animal bones were excavated. Research should show which animals the inhabitants hunted and which they kept as livestock.

“We know that the flint comes from present-day Limburg, where farmers used to live. So the residents had contact with them. They copied the principle of agriculture from the southerners and also took over cultural matters, such as rituals and the collective way of burial," says Sebastiaan Knippenberg. As an archaeologist at Archol, he took part in the excavation of the tomb and the settlement. Farming communities already buried their dead together in a grave, rather than individually. In the river area, however, this was a new development.

Stubborn

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When you look at Western Europe 5600 years ago, you see that the people in the Dutch river area and on the coast behaved differently than people in the areas around them. In present-day Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany and the south of Brabant and Limburg, the transition from hunter-gatherers to agriculture and livestock farming took place around 4000 BC. This was a fairly abrupt cleavage:farming quickly became the predominant lifestyle. But not in our areas, explains Luc Amkreutz. He is curator of the Netherlands Prehistory collection at the National Museum of Antiquities.

“In the river area, in the middle of those areas with hardcore farmers, we see a bunch of stubborn people. They gave their lives a completely unique twist and combined farming with old-fashioned hunting and gathering. This is also reflected in Tiel. For a long time we thought that agricultural existence was superior. In other areas we see that people, as soon as they could become farmers, threw the rest of the activities over the fence. The emphasis was almost immediately on agriculture and livestock. The fact that the transition from hunting-gathering to largely farming took about two thousand years here is truly a unique situation.”

Family Grave

In the transition to a permanent agricultural location, family became crucial to be a successful farmer, according to Amkreutz:“As a farmer you cannot do it alone. You have to rely on others to reap the harvest and protect your possessions from robbery.” Archaeologists see the growing importance of family ties in the collective burial of relatives, rather than individual graves. This development also took place in the river area. But in addition to doing some agriculture, the residents there mainly continued to hunt and fish.

According to Steffen Baetsen, who is a physical anthropologist involved in the research, there are several reasons to assume that we are dealing with a family grave in Tiel. “On the basis of the number of teeth, we have been able to determine that at least eight people are involved, including two children. There are probably more, but you will never find everything back of course. We also see from the characteristics of the pelvic fragments that they are men and women. Because of this mixed composition, we think that this is a family.”

An important argument that this concerns a family grave and not a mass grave after a violent crime is the time difference between moments of burial. Baetsen:“The turmoil of the grave shows that the previously deceased have been pushed aside to make room for new ones. If it were a mass grave, all people would have been buried at the same time and you should see traces of violence on the bone remains. That is not the case now.”

The researchers will not know for sure whether it is a family until the bone remains have been subjected to DNA testing. This is crucial for our knowledge of this period, as only one other large family grave has been found, on Schokland. However, that was in much worse condition than this grave in Tiel. The investigation will only take at least two years, so we will have to wait a little longer for the answers. For now, the remains from the grave can be seen in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.