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Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic human impact at Dutch wetland sites: the case study of Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin

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Abstract

Evidence of human impact on the vegetation obtained from pollen diagrams at sites in the process of neolithisation is often difficult to detect. Apart from aspects like site function and occupation intensity, methodological aspects play a considerable role. In the Rhine-Meuse delta in the Netherlands, neolithisation is documented at the Final Mesolithic sites Hardinxveld-Giessendam Polderweg and Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin and the local Early Neolithic sites of Brandwijk-Kerkhof and the Hazendonk, covering the period of 5500–2500 cal. b.c. The off-site core from Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin supports earlier results that human influence on the vegetation at Hardinxveld is restricted and difficult to distinguish from natural vegetation disturbance. Human impact is more easily recognisable in the diagrams of Neolithic phases at Brandwijk-Kerkhof and the Hazendonk that show evidence of both domestic animals and cereals. Continuing neolithisation and also research methodology, including the location of the pollen cores, may play a role in this. It is tested whether the use of a new pollen sum excluding extra-regional taxa increases the visibility of human impact.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank C.C. Bakels, W.J. Kuijper and L.P. Louwe Kooijmans for their kind support and advice, A. Louwe Kooijmans for inspiring discussion about the pollen sum, O. Brinkkemper and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful and valuable comments, H. van der Plicht and colleagues for dating, L. Amkreutz and J. Mol for fruitful discussions, and M. Doorenbosch for literature suggestions and help with the figures. The research was part of a project on neolithisation in Dutch wetlands (“From Hardinxveld to Noordhoorn: from forager to farmer”), primarily carried out at Leiden University and funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (2003–2009). WO is a member of the research cluster Complexity and Socio-Ecological dynamics (cases-bcn.net) and is funded by an EU Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (273610). The analysis of the core was carried out by KV for his master thesis at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is now assistant professor at the Research Unit Palaeontology at Ghent University, where A. Gautier provided valuable suggestions on the manuscript.

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  1. Institute Milà and Fontanals, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), C/Egipcíaques, 15, 08001, Barcelona, Spain

    Welmoed A. Out

  2. Research Unit Palaeontology, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S8, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Koen Verhoeven

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  1. Welmoed A. Out
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Correspondence to Welmoed A. Out.

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Communicated by K.-E. Behre.

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ESM 1

Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin, on-site sample series, square 24, pollen diagram based on an upland pollen sum (Bakels et al. 2001). Exaggeration, if applied, is fivefold (EPS 2047 kb)

ESM 2

Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin, off-site core, pollen, NPP and macrofossil data (XLS 51 kb)

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Out, W.A., Verhoeven, K. Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic human impact at Dutch wetland sites: the case study of Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin. Veget Hist Archaeobot 23, 41–56 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-013-0396-0

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