Telt NL

It's the first Friday of the month! And that means it's time to listen in to the latest episode of Finally Friday, which this month focusses on reconstructing houses and daily life in the Late Neolithic. We are joined by two archaeologists from the Putting Life into Late Neolithic Houses project discussing all the methods they’re using to create a picture of the past, from full scale reconstruction to microwear analysis.

Annelou van Gijn is Professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies at Leiden University and the Principal Investigator for Putting Life into Late Neolithic Houses. Diederik Pomstra has over 20 years of experience in experimental archaeology, ancient technology, and public outreach...

The heavy storms that were blowing through the Netherlands in February and beginning of March this year, sadly had an impact on one of the Stone Age houses at Masamuda. A wind force of 11 hit the house from a different angle than usual and tilted the walls to the side. Several wooden posts inside the house broke so that the wall started to lean inwards.

As the house was originally built with Stone Age tools, Leo Wolterbeek and the other members of the Putting Life into Neolithic Houses team also wanted to do the repairs with Stone Age tools.

In December of last year, the team of the Putting Life into Neolithic Houses project came together for the first cooking experiment. The original plan was to cook inside one of the reconstructed houses, as the Vlaardingen people would have done, but due to Covid 19 restrictions in the Netherlands, the experiment took place outside.

"Cooking and food preparation was most likely an important part of the daily life of the Vlaardingen people." 

The project, coordinated by the Leiden University and EXARC being one of the partners, is looking into the role of material culture as well as the activities the tools and objects were involved in. A combination of experimental archaeology, microwear and residue analysis will be used to expand our knowledge about the Vlaardingen culture.

The partners of the Putting Life into Neolithic Houses project organised a hide-working experiment workshop in July 2021. This took place at Masamuda, Vlaardingen.

Diederik Pomstra gave the participants a short introduction to hide working with neolithic tools and explained the process in more detail. For this experiment, red deer and fallow deer skin was used. The hides were placed on wooden frames to be able to work on them. The first task was to remove the outer layers of the skin with flint scrapers. The tools needed to be sharpened regularly during the work.

Craft and subsistence in the Late Stone Age is the theme of a four-year project under coordination of Leiden University.

EXARC is among one of the ten other partners. In September, we had the chance to finally meet each other in person, and for this purpose we went to Biesbosch National Park. This is one of the only freshwater tidal wetlands in Northwestern Europe. 

We are making good progress with shaping the dugout’s bottom. However, although chopping the wood is perfectly possible with the big flint axes, it does take a lot of time and above all energy, especially when it is hot! Splitting the wood and removing thick slices goes much faster and is far easier. This is the tactic we have been following. To successfully split the wood it is important to follow the grain and to have a trunk that is free of knots. In the past people must have carefully selected the wood, as the prehistoric canoes that we examined are largely free of knots...

Making a dugout canoe - big project for 2021, to be made by the Masamuda boat builders

When would be a likely time for such an expedition, one that would not conflict with other activities in the yearly seasonal round?
Who would have joined such an expedition?
How did they live in such an encampment, what kind of structure may they have had for the weeks that it probably took to finish the dugout?
Could they, in the meantime, have collected food sources to take back to the delta such as acorns?...

In 2016 the first experimental structure at the Masamuda Archaeological Educational Centre (EXARC Member) in Vlaardingen near Rotterdam was built, a collaboration between Leiden University and Masamuda (see video). It was based on a house plan from the Late Neolithic Vlaardingen culture. Since then local volunteers have carried out different activities around this structure and Leiden students and staff did scientific experiments on the terrain. 

Now it is time to turn the page and move forward: the house has to be put to life!