Telt NL

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!

Dutch house (re)construction receives fitting finale
On March 8, a Stone Age like house (re)construction was burned to the ground as part of a scientific project by the University of Leiden (NL), member of EXARC. EXARC witnessed the process. Seven years before, this house was based on the excavation of a Neolithic house at Haamstede Brabers (NL). The house project at Horsterwold, led by prof. van Gijn was aimed to learn more about the biography of Neolithic houses: obtaining the materials, the tools used, the quantity of work, repairs and the decay. Burning down the house and recording the remains are the last stage in the process...