Archaeologists have found the largest Stone Age burial field in all of northwestern Europe near Dalfsen in Overijssel. The cemetery contains 120 graves. Due to this enormous amount of graves, scientific theories can be thrown into the trash:in prehistoric times, burial was not reserved for a few, but standard for everyone.
5000 years ago, farmers first settled above the major Dutch rivers. The Funnel Cup People, named after the distinctive Funnel Cups that this people made, exchanged a life of hunting and gathering for a settled existence. These Stone Age people built the dolmens in Drenthe and one of their burial fields has now been found in Dalfsen. The grave field is 120 by 20 meters in size and has an earthen monument of 30 by 4 meters in the middle.
Everyone gets a grave gift
Until now, about fifty graves of hunebed builders had been found throughout the Netherlands, of which the largest grave field contains eight graves. The surprise and astonishment was therefore great when 120 graves were uncovered during the excavation in Dalfsen. In each grave there was also at least one decorated funnel cup as a burial gift, pots that were very rare in the Netherlands until now.
The question is whether there are also social differences. Professor Daan Raemaekers, professor of Archeology at the University of Groningen, thinks so. “The decorations on the pots differ, as do the types of graves found. Some of the dead lay in a box pit, others in egg-shaped pits. But is there a link between the shape of the grave and the various decorations? Were men given different grave goods than women? Further research is needed to develop ideas about this and discover patterns.”
Decorations on the grave goods
From the number of graves and the decorations of the pottery, the scientists can determine how long the burial field was used and how large the village must have been. Raemaekers:“The population growth was not that fast because of the many deaths. Each generation remained about the same size as the last. We also found children's graves and we assume that everyone, both male and female, was buried. We don't know for sure because no skeletons have been preserved."
“The grave goods we found are beautifully decorated and even then decoration was subject to fashion. The changing decorations let you know that the burial field has been used for one or two centuries. With 120 graves in two centuries, about three to six families will have buried their dead here. It also seems very likely that each family had its own characteristics, but we need to explore that further from the decorations on the grave goods.”
Life next to death
In addition to the decorated funnel cups and other grave goods such as stone axes, flint arrowheads and amber chains, a map of a farm has also been found. This is the first map ever in the Netherlands from this period and it can be read by the discoloration in the sand. It concerns a farm of 12 meters long and 4.5 meters wide that stood next to the grave field. The archaeologists also found a burial pit in the farm itself. This indicates that our ancestors dealt with death very differently than we do now.
Raemaekers:“Now we find it very normal that death and the cemetery are separated from our daily life. This was clearly not the case in prehistoric times. The Funnel Beaker People lived together with death and with the dead, according to this find. Death was much more a part of everyday life, in which many children died young and life expectancy was low.” There were probably more farms here, but the soil discolorations that could indicate this have been too badly disturbed in 5000 years to be able to say with certainty.
Further insights
The scientists will now investigate the finds further. They hope to find patterns that will say more about the social relationships and differences between men and women. Raemakers:“Male and female skeletons have been found in some German graves of hunebed builders. By comparing their grave goods with our grave goods, we hope to discover typical female or male characteristics. In addition, it seems that the dead were given provisions. For example, I myself saw black specks between the sand in a funnel beaker, indicating grain. This research will also provide further insights into prehistoric burial rituals.”
Some bone and molar remains were found in two burial pits. The scientists will try to extract DNA from this to investigate genetic relationships. Chemical research can say more about the diet of the Stone Age people:a vegetarian meal reacts differently than meat.
With these finds and future research results, scientists have for the first time more than a few slivers of knowledge about the Funnelbeaker People, enabling them to build a complete picture of this period in our history.