Putting life into Neolithic houses with an NWO subsidy:
‘We will bring detail in our image of past domestic activities’
Archaeologist Annelou van Gijn received an NWO Archeologie Telt grant to investigate domestic craft and subsistence activities of late Neolithic peoples in the coastal area of the Netherlands. The project heavily relies on experimental archaeology: “Exploring past technology by experiment, doing things together, is an excellent way of creating a scientific community in which both professional archaeologists and the general public can thrive” explains Annelou. The volunteers of Masamuda, a recently opened educational archaeological open air centre in the town of Vlaardingen, are therefore central to the project. ‘Together with them, we will bring life to the reconstruction of a Vlaardingen house that we jointly built in 2016’.
Annelou van Gijn
Annelou is Professor Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies Leiden University and one of the world’s leading microwear specialists. She is the founder of the Leiden Laboratory for Material Culture Studies which focuses on the scientific analysis of the life histories of past objects and the connectivity between different categories of material culture. She supervised, together with Diederik Pomstra, Leo Wolterbeek and Annemieke Verbaas, the experimental construction of both the Horsterwold house and the house in the Vlaardingen-Broekpolder and has extensive experience in studying stone age technologies from a biographical perspective, using microscopy, experiments and ethnography. Annelou is the PI of the project and responsible for the coordination of the team and the integration of the data. She will also be actively involved in the biographical analysis of the bone, antler, ceramic, wood and stone objects and will supervise the PhD research of Lasse van den Dikkenberg.
http://leidenuniv.academia.edu/AnnelouVanGijn
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/annelou-van-gijn
Jan Kolen
Jan is Professor Landscape Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Leiden University and together with Annelou PI of the project. He is widely known for his innovative work on landscape biography, which developed as a popular approach in both archaeology and geography. Jan’s current research is inspired by “time geography” and explores as concretely as possible how (and why) people in the past moved through space and time between places, other people and resources. From this perspective “landscape” is simultaneously a reservoir of resources, an infrastructure for movement and transport, as well as a technology for economic provisioning and for (re) shaping social networks. Such a “time geography approach” of ancient landscapes may be an impetus for experimental research and will provide insight into the mobility of the Vlaardingen people and their relationships with each other.
Oliver Craig
Oliver is Professor of Archaeologcal Science at the University of York and is a leading specialist in biomolecular archaeology and his work provides important insights into past human activities. Oliver directs the BioArCh research facility at the University of York which includes world-class facilities for light stable isotopes, lipid residue analysis, proteomics and ancient DNA. Of special relevance to our project is his work on early pottery of Holocene hunter-gatherers and early farmers of Northern and Western Europe (https://www.earlypottery.org/ ), which will allow him to draw detailed comparisons with the results of the organic residue analysis of the Vlaardingen pottery. Together with Lucy Kubiak-Martens he will study the presence of organic residues in Vlaardingen pottery, using GC-MS and GC-combustion isotope analysis. Their research will tell us about the “cuisine’ of the Vlaardingen people, what kind of recipes they prepared.
https://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/people/academic-staff/oliver-craig/
Lucy Kubiak-Martens
Lucy is an archaebotanist working as a senior researcher at BIAX Consult Biological Archaeology & Environmental Reconstruction. She is specialized in plant macro-remains analysis. Her expertise also includes the use of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in analysis of charred organic residues encrusted on ceramics and the identification of charred archaeological parenchyma. Her field of work and research interest is the role of plant foods in pre- and early agrarian subsistence economy in temperate Europe. Lucy has worked on food residues encrusted on prehistoric pottery, including Swifterbant and Corded Ware ceramics, where the main research questions were concerned with methods of food preparation, pottery use and evidence for the consumption of cereals. Together with Oliver Craig she will study the residues on Vlaardingen pottery focusing on the study of food crusts by means of scanning electron microscopy.
Ineke Joosten
Ineke is a senior heritage specialist at the Cultural Heritage Laboratory of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). She has c. 20 years of experience in studying cultural heritage materials like (archaeological) textiles and metal, paintings, stone applied in monuments and sculptures, garnets, glass and ceramics. Her research focuses on degradation and conservation studies and on archaeometrical studies. She has collaborated in an international multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists, conservations scientists, archaeo-botanists and students of the Vienna University of Applied Arts into the characterization of archaeological textiles found in the salt mine of Hallstatt. Many of the textiles appeared to have been dyed with different dye stuffs. Ineke will collaborate with Annelou van Gijn in exploring new analytical techniques like scanning electron microscopy and profilometry of studying the wear traces on bone and antler tools, in an attempt to link the observed variability in microwear traces to different craft activities. Her knowledge of ancient dying methods will also contribute to the experiments we intend to do with ancient dyes.
Roeland Paardekooper
As founder in 2001 and current director of EXARC (https://exarc.net) Roeland is the best informed person in Europe about archaeological open-air museums. Following his PhD in archaeological open-air museums at the University of Exeter in 2012, he was appointed honorary research fellow in 2018. In 2015 Roeland received the Museum Horizon Award, awarded by the Hans Manneby Memorial Fund for Museum Development for his innovative manner of developing and changing the role of museums in contemporary society, local as well as global. He recently was appointed as director of the Middelaldercentret in Sundby, Denmark. He has been involved in public outreach through the social media of EXARC for many years and will be instrumental in the dissemination of the project’s experimental and scientific results to a wider audience, in order to elicit suggestions for alternative interpretations.
Leo Wolterbeek
Leo has been building professional reconstructions of house plans from prehistory and early Middle Ages since 1982, frequently only using tools and techniques demonstrated archaeologically for the period concerned. He has worked in Archeon, Eindhoven Museum and many other open air centres in the Netherlands and beyond. He has a vast knowledge of the physical properties of different species of wood, and the appropriateness of different tools and techniques. He has participated in the Mesolithic living experiment in Horsterwold and will be essential in the experimental program of our project, especially where it concerns the dug-out canoe and the making of “furniture” like ards, looms and ovens, as well as the production of small household utensils like containers. He has a lot of experience in supervising students and volunteers, and will be crucial in teaching the Masamuda volunteers the art of wood working.
Diederik Pomstra
Diederik is staff member of the Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology and has worked in the field of experimental archaeology, Stone Age crafts and public outreach for over 20 years. He works for an international clientele of scientists, museums and educational institutions and is (co-)author of more than 20 publications. He has contributed to several national and international television productions as expert or advisor. He is a flintknapper and has extensive knowledge of working various organic materials like skin, bones and fibers and has extensive experience supervising students and volunteers. He will be making many of the tools to be used in the experimental workshops and is an avid communicator.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/diederik-pomstra
Caroline Vermeeren
Caroline is senior specialist in wood analysis at BIAX Consult Biological Archaeology & Environmental Reconstruction. She has collaborated with Annemieke Verbaas, Kirsti Hänninen, Leo Wolterbeek and Diederik Pomstra in reconstructing the Iron Age canoe from Vlaardingen and will do so for the Vlaardingen canoe that is going to be constructed in the first year of the project. Together with Kirsti she will also analyze wooden artefacts from the Vlaardingen culture. She has extensive knowledge of the material properties of different species of wood and is familiar with the use of wood in the Neolithic.
Kirsti Hänninen
Kirsti is an archaeobotanist and partner at BIAX Consult Biological Archaeology & Environmental Reconstruction. Her interests focus on the subsistence economy, the use of wood and the technology associated with different wood types. Together with Caroline Vermeeren she will study the wooden objects found at Vlaardingen sites. Along with Leo Wolterbeek and Diederik Pomstra, Caroline and Kirsti will be involved in making the dug-out canoe.
Jeroen ter Brugge and the Masamuda Archaeological Educational Centre
Jeroen is initiator and secretary of Masamuda, a non-profit open air museum which aims to create an archaeological park with reconstructions of houses and landscapes discovered in the Dutch Meuse delta where school children and others can experience the archaeological past of the region. Masamuda will be the centre of our experimental activities and volunteers will be involved in all experimental workshops in order to obtain the archaeological knowledge and experimental skills to convey to the visitors of the centre. Jeroen, as former head of collections of the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam and current Curator of Maritime Collections at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, has a vast knowledge of maritime technology. As former town archaeologist of Vlaardingen his contribution to the project, apart from coordinating the participation of the Masamuda volunteers, will be the study of the estuarine landscape and human-landscape interactions. In this context the reconstruction of regional excavated prehistoric and Roman period dugouts are one of his main interests.
Annemieke Verbaas
Annemieke is a senior microwear specialist with extensive experience in experimental archaeology, especially fibre technology. She works for Stichting LAB (Leids Archeologisch Specialisten Bureau. Her primary specialization is the study of stone tools, but she has experience with a wide range of materials. She has contributed to most of the recent rescue excavations of Vlaardingen sites and has an extensive knowledge of material properties. She will perform the technological and microwear analysis of the stone objects like querns and grinding stones. Because of the project’s interest in toolkits and the connectivity of different objects, she will closely collaborate with Annelou van Gijn and Lasse van den Dikkenberg. Together with Annelou, Oliver Craig and Lucy Kubiak-Martens, she will examine Vlaardingen pottery for evidence of former use.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/annemieke-verbaas
Kelvin Wilson
Kelvin is an archaeological reconstruction illustrator well-known in the Netherlands and beyond. His well thought out reconstructions and provocative style stem from being able to critically re-think the scientific data, and communicate its complexities to a wider audience. His art is well-suited to elicit discussions. Ideally, a second draftsperson will depart from the same experimental and scientific data, the objective being to have two different interpretations of the same data. The art will be distributed through the social media of EXARC and the various partners of the projects.
Yuri van Koeveringe
Yuri, partner and initiator of TGVideo Leiden, will make a short film at the end of the project on daily life in the VL period. Over the course of the project he will film key experiments. He has been involved in many public outreach projects, such as short documentaries, expositions, books and educational projects.
Lasse van den Dikkenberg
Lasse is PhD candidate at Leiden University and will focus on the lithic assemblages from various Vlaardingen sites. He has a background in the archaeology of prehistoric Europe with a focus on farming communities in the Netherlands and Belgium. He also has experience with experimental archaeology, living history and public outreach. His research will focus on flint assemblages from a biographical perspective. He will study the origin of flint, the techniques used in the manufacture of flint tools and their usage based on microwear analyses. He will also study the interregional connections and networks of the Vlaardingen people. He will investigate to what extent knowledge, ideas, technologies and objects were shared with other regional groups.
https://exarc.net/members/ind/lasse-van-den-dikkenberg-cand-phd
https://leidenuni.academia.edu/LassevandenDikkenberg
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/lasse-van-den-dikkenberg
Tatiana Crombeen
Tatiana is an art historian who received her master’s degree at Ghent University in 2019. Her master’s thesis dealt with the sixteenth-century ruby cutters of Antwerp. Currently, she is a BA student in World Archaeology, as well as an honors student at Leiden University and has a keen interest in microwear analysis and the relation between objects and their craftsmen or owners. For this project, she is appointed as a research assistant. She will assist with the data management of the project, organize the loans from the various archaeological storage depots of Vlaardingen finds and assist Annelou with the general management and coordination of the project.