Hans Peeters
My research focusses primarily on the archaeology of hunter-gatherers in prehistoric NW Europe. Main topics of interest are: (1) relationships between environmental dynamics and hunter-gatherer perceptions and use of landscape; (2) ritual dimensions in domestic activities and 'daily behaviour'; (3) technological variability in material culture (lithics in particular) and cultural transmission of knowledge and skill; (4) emergence of archaeological patterns through coupling of processes that operate at different scales in time and space; (5) representation of prehistoric hunter-gatherers and heritage management; (6) archaeological and anthropological theory. Approaches to this research involve, amongst others, GIS-based modelling of landscape change and hunter-gatherer behaviour, chaîne opératoire analysis of lithics, and spatial analysis of distributions of archaeological remains.
In my research I seek to merge archaeological, evidence-based analysis with an interdisciplinary contextual approach that combines archaeology, anthropology, and environmental/earth sciences (physical geography, geology, ecology).
Some other fields of interest concern self-organisation in human behavioural dynamics, the nature and 'causes' of culture change, and complexity theory in general.
Other engagements:
I am currently a member of the Management Committee of the SPLASHCOS (www.splashcos.org) project (EU-Cost Action TD0902). Earlier, I stood at the basis of the development of the North Sea Prehistory Research and Management Framework (NSPRMF), which is downloadable from these pages; the scientific background volume to NSPRMF is in preparation and will be published as a special issue of the Netherlands Journal of Geosciences / Geologie en Mijnbouw in 2013.
Photo: The guy with the baseball cap is Bill Lovis (MSU).
Phone: +31-(0)50-3635961
Address: Groningen Institute of Archaeology
Poststraat 6
NL - 9712 ER Groningen
In my research I seek to merge archaeological, evidence-based analysis with an interdisciplinary contextual approach that combines archaeology, anthropology, and environmental/earth sciences (physical geography, geology, ecology).
Some other fields of interest concern self-organisation in human behavioural dynamics, the nature and 'causes' of culture change, and complexity theory in general.
Other engagements:
I am currently a member of the Management Committee of the SPLASHCOS (www.splashcos.org) project (EU-Cost Action TD0902). Earlier, I stood at the basis of the development of the North Sea Prehistory Research and Management Framework (NSPRMF), which is downloadable from these pages; the scientific background volume to NSPRMF is in preparation and will be published as a special issue of the Netherlands Journal of Geosciences / Geologie en Mijnbouw in 2013.
Photo: The guy with the baseball cap is Bill Lovis (MSU).
Phone: +31-(0)50-3635961
Address: Groningen Institute of Archaeology
Poststraat 6
NL - 9712 ER Groningen
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Books by Hans Peeters
The lack of attention for sites and phenomena associated with no or few lithics causes several problems with regard to archaeological insights into the variability in landscape use, technological traditions, and sociocultural interaction. This book presents a collection of articles which address these problems from several angles, with an emphasis on the Mesolithic of NW Europe: dwellings and activities associated with no or few lithics; variability in site location and landscape use, notably in relation to hunting and ethology of game species; and technological aspects of non-lithic material culture. The book intends to increase awareness of the consequences of the issues addressed for our understanding of the past, and boost research and heritage management initiatives in this field.
The Netherlands are internationally renowned for the archaeology of its wetland environments. The reclamation of the Flevoland Polders in the early half of the 20th century not only exposed hundreds of shipwrecks, but also remnants of prehistoric landscapes and traces of human occupation dating to Mesolithic and Neolithic times. Ultimately, this led to the ‘discovery’ of the Swifterbant Culture in the 1960s-1970s, and which was initially seen as a Dutch equivalent of the Ertebølle Culture.
Archaeological investigations conducted by the University of Groningen, and later also the University of Amsterdam, delivered important new data on the nature of the Swifterbant Culture. It became key in the discussion about the adoption of crop cultivation and animal husbandry by hunter-gatherers living in wetland environments. Also, the Swifterbant Culture became central in the debate on the meaning of archaeologically defined ‘cultures’, questioning relationships between social interaction and material culture. With the increase of urbanisation and infrastructural works, alongside changes in the Dutch Monuments Act, dozens of small and large-scale development-led investigations got initiated at the turn of the century.
One project involved the construction of the Hanzelijn railway, crossing one of the polders from West to East. Archaeologists became aware that much of what was known – and unknown – about the prehistoric past of the Flevoland Polders, was not easily accessible. It was therefore decided to bring together, as much as possible, all the information from the many scattered sources, and make it accessible to professionals, both inside and outside the Netherlands. The result is this book, which presents an overview of the most important sites and data, and what these learn us about the nature of the archaeological record, landscape change, prehistoric subsistence, ritual behaviour, as well as socio-cultural developments during the Mesolithic and Neolithic.
Previously considered an impossibility, ‘fossilised’ fields, discovered at Swifterbant, demonstrate crop cultivation in wetland environments in an early stage of the Neolithic. In fact, the prehistory of the Flevoland Polders is tightly connected to the dynamic nature of the extended wetlands that characterised the landscape since the end of the last glacial. Although often regarded as the ‘margin’ of cultural dynamics in the past, we can now see that the Flevoland Polders were right in the centre of fundamental long-term changes in human existence in NW Europe.
prehistoric cultural heritage of the southern North Sea. Now, in 2019, we address the question: Where do we stand after a decade of work? In the past ten years, a lot of work has been done and progress has been made; however, we are still far from meeting all of the priorities defined. While the themes and topics of the NSPRMF 2009 remain relevant today, based on the experiences over the years, they have been revised and updated for this NSPRMF 2019.
Author list:
Boon, J.J., Brinkhuizen, D.C., Bunnik, F.P.M., Cohen, K.M., Cremer, H., Exaltus, R.P., van Kappel, K., Kooistra, L.I., Koolmees, H., de Kruyk, H., Kubiak-Martens, L., Moree, J.M., Niekus, M.J.L.T., Peeters, J.H.M., Schiltmans, D.E.A., Verbaas, A., Verbruggen, F., Vos, P.C., Zeiler, J.T.
Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Methods and techniques
Chapter 3 Landscape genesis and palaeogeography
Chapter 4 Flint and other stone https://www.academia.edu/11573354/
Chapter 5 Fauna
Chapter 6 Archaeobotany: landscape reconstruction and plant food
Chapter 7 Synthesis https://www.academia.edu/11600300/
Authorship is indicated per chapter. A rich DVD with further technical reports (in Dutch) is part of the publication. It also contains a 15 minute documentary movie (bilingual).
The book is the English translation of BOORrapporten 523 (2014, in Dutch, same editors and authors)
Link to DUTCH book: http://www.rotterdam.nl/Clusters/Stadsbeheer/Images%202014/BOOR/PDF/BOORrapporten%20523%20Rotterdam%20Yangtzehaven.pdf
Link to ENGLISH version: http://www.rotterdam.nl/Clusters/Stadsbeheer/Images%202015/BOOR/PDF/BR566_Maasvlakte2_ENGLISH.pdf
The PDF on the Rotterdam.nl website (the right link, in grey, below) is the full Book. It contains a PREFACE, a PART 2 on the stratigraphy of the sand extraction area off the Maasvlakte extension, and an EPILOGUE on a human bone find from that area). The PDF uploaded to academia.edu (the left link, in green, below) is PART 1 only.
Book Chapters by Hans Peeters
picture of hunting practices and technology is biased by the overrepresentation of sites characterised by quantities of knapped lithics – the interpretation of sites with no or only little lithics is difficult, notably due to the fact that non-lithic materials are often not preserved. Secondly, there is an underestimation of the importance of non-lithic material
culture directly or indirectly related to hunting and landscape exploitation. Thirdly, hunting can encompass various strategies, which are associated with different uses of materials and structures in different parts of the landscape. Choices that have been made will certainly have depended on the knowledge about animal behaviour and landscape structure, with an important role for rivers, lakes and seashores. Taking differences in
geographical and environmental conditions, as well as variability in hunting strategies and technology into consideration, this paper attempts to identify some tendencies with regard to the hunting of key species of big game (reindeer/caribou; elk/moose; red deer; roe deer; wild boar) in Mesolithic/Late Stone Age landscapes in north-western Europe. The most important aspects of the behaviour of these species are discussed, notably seasonal variations with regard to group composition, occurrence in the landscape, and daily feeding and drinking patterns. Next, we discuss aspects of hunting, notably the establishment of the presence of game, the spotting and approaching prey, and the wounding and following of prey. This is followed by a brief look at the archaeological evidence for big game hunting and aspects of landscape structure in the Mesolithic of
north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia
and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
so that we do not lure ourselves into the illusion that the patterns distinguishable in lithic industries necessarily correspond to other, possibly more significant cultural influences that we are unable to reconstruct.
The lack of attention for sites and phenomena associated with no or few lithics causes several problems with regard to archaeological insights into the variability in landscape use, technological traditions, and sociocultural interaction. This book presents a collection of articles which address these problems from several angles, with an emphasis on the Mesolithic of NW Europe: dwellings and activities associated with no or few lithics; variability in site location and landscape use, notably in relation to hunting and ethology of game species; and technological aspects of non-lithic material culture. The book intends to increase awareness of the consequences of the issues addressed for our understanding of the past, and boost research and heritage management initiatives in this field.
The Netherlands are internationally renowned for the archaeology of its wetland environments. The reclamation of the Flevoland Polders in the early half of the 20th century not only exposed hundreds of shipwrecks, but also remnants of prehistoric landscapes and traces of human occupation dating to Mesolithic and Neolithic times. Ultimately, this led to the ‘discovery’ of the Swifterbant Culture in the 1960s-1970s, and which was initially seen as a Dutch equivalent of the Ertebølle Culture.
Archaeological investigations conducted by the University of Groningen, and later also the University of Amsterdam, delivered important new data on the nature of the Swifterbant Culture. It became key in the discussion about the adoption of crop cultivation and animal husbandry by hunter-gatherers living in wetland environments. Also, the Swifterbant Culture became central in the debate on the meaning of archaeologically defined ‘cultures’, questioning relationships between social interaction and material culture. With the increase of urbanisation and infrastructural works, alongside changes in the Dutch Monuments Act, dozens of small and large-scale development-led investigations got initiated at the turn of the century.
One project involved the construction of the Hanzelijn railway, crossing one of the polders from West to East. Archaeologists became aware that much of what was known – and unknown – about the prehistoric past of the Flevoland Polders, was not easily accessible. It was therefore decided to bring together, as much as possible, all the information from the many scattered sources, and make it accessible to professionals, both inside and outside the Netherlands. The result is this book, which presents an overview of the most important sites and data, and what these learn us about the nature of the archaeological record, landscape change, prehistoric subsistence, ritual behaviour, as well as socio-cultural developments during the Mesolithic and Neolithic.
Previously considered an impossibility, ‘fossilised’ fields, discovered at Swifterbant, demonstrate crop cultivation in wetland environments in an early stage of the Neolithic. In fact, the prehistory of the Flevoland Polders is tightly connected to the dynamic nature of the extended wetlands that characterised the landscape since the end of the last glacial. Although often regarded as the ‘margin’ of cultural dynamics in the past, we can now see that the Flevoland Polders were right in the centre of fundamental long-term changes in human existence in NW Europe.
prehistoric cultural heritage of the southern North Sea. Now, in 2019, we address the question: Where do we stand after a decade of work? In the past ten years, a lot of work has been done and progress has been made; however, we are still far from meeting all of the priorities defined. While the themes and topics of the NSPRMF 2009 remain relevant today, based on the experiences over the years, they have been revised and updated for this NSPRMF 2019.
Author list:
Boon, J.J., Brinkhuizen, D.C., Bunnik, F.P.M., Cohen, K.M., Cremer, H., Exaltus, R.P., van Kappel, K., Kooistra, L.I., Koolmees, H., de Kruyk, H., Kubiak-Martens, L., Moree, J.M., Niekus, M.J.L.T., Peeters, J.H.M., Schiltmans, D.E.A., Verbaas, A., Verbruggen, F., Vos, P.C., Zeiler, J.T.
Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Methods and techniques
Chapter 3 Landscape genesis and palaeogeography
Chapter 4 Flint and other stone https://www.academia.edu/11573354/
Chapter 5 Fauna
Chapter 6 Archaeobotany: landscape reconstruction and plant food
Chapter 7 Synthesis https://www.academia.edu/11600300/
Authorship is indicated per chapter. A rich DVD with further technical reports (in Dutch) is part of the publication. It also contains a 15 minute documentary movie (bilingual).
The book is the English translation of BOORrapporten 523 (2014, in Dutch, same editors and authors)
Link to DUTCH book: http://www.rotterdam.nl/Clusters/Stadsbeheer/Images%202014/BOOR/PDF/BOORrapporten%20523%20Rotterdam%20Yangtzehaven.pdf
Link to ENGLISH version: http://www.rotterdam.nl/Clusters/Stadsbeheer/Images%202015/BOOR/PDF/BR566_Maasvlakte2_ENGLISH.pdf
The PDF on the Rotterdam.nl website (the right link, in grey, below) is the full Book. It contains a PREFACE, a PART 2 on the stratigraphy of the sand extraction area off the Maasvlakte extension, and an EPILOGUE on a human bone find from that area). The PDF uploaded to academia.edu (the left link, in green, below) is PART 1 only.
picture of hunting practices and technology is biased by the overrepresentation of sites characterised by quantities of knapped lithics – the interpretation of sites with no or only little lithics is difficult, notably due to the fact that non-lithic materials are often not preserved. Secondly, there is an underestimation of the importance of non-lithic material
culture directly or indirectly related to hunting and landscape exploitation. Thirdly, hunting can encompass various strategies, which are associated with different uses of materials and structures in different parts of the landscape. Choices that have been made will certainly have depended on the knowledge about animal behaviour and landscape structure, with an important role for rivers, lakes and seashores. Taking differences in
geographical and environmental conditions, as well as variability in hunting strategies and technology into consideration, this paper attempts to identify some tendencies with regard to the hunting of key species of big game (reindeer/caribou; elk/moose; red deer; roe deer; wild boar) in Mesolithic/Late Stone Age landscapes in north-western Europe. The most important aspects of the behaviour of these species are discussed, notably seasonal variations with regard to group composition, occurrence in the landscape, and daily feeding and drinking patterns. Next, we discuss aspects of hunting, notably the establishment of the presence of game, the spotting and approaching prey, and the wounding and following of prey. This is followed by a brief look at the archaeological evidence for big game hunting and aspects of landscape structure in the Mesolithic of
north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia
and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
so that we do not lure ourselves into the illusion that the patterns distinguishable in lithic industries necessarily correspond to other, possibly more significant cultural influences that we are unable to reconstruct.
Comparison of our results with Mesolithic pit-hearth features shows substantial differences between the two types of remains. Ant nest depressions do not extend into (cemented) podzol B horizons, whereas Mesolithic pit hearths typically have their base in the C horizons. The extensive tunnelling in B- and C-horizons of large ant nests has not been observed in Mesolithic pit-hearth features. On the other hand, the large amount of charred humus and charcoal fragments in Mesolithic pit hearths are lacking in the burned ant nest we studied. We therefore conclude that Mesolithic pit-hearth features are not the result of the burning down of ant nests, but should be regarded as anthropogenic features.
earlier and later phases and across regions, a pattern connected to changing landscape use and mobility regimes within the LBK, as well as the changing utilisation of material culture in identity creation. In the Low Countries, it is much harder to draw a definite line between foragers and farmers based on mobility or environmental impact, and foragers had been used to dealing with population movements. There is thus far less difference between the actors, and a concomitantly greater involvement
of both in shaping the Neolithic. In contrast, in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany there is the perennial question of whether the ‘complex’ Ertebølle hunter-gatherers eventually fell for the lures of Neolithic luxury goods, or should be credited in resisting long enough to drive a Neolithisation on their own terms. However, societies here are more internally diverse than is generally appreciated, pointing to different interaction mechanisms inland and on the coast. Overall, several interaction scenarios succeed each other in time and/or space, in each of our regions. This paper hence also calls for maintaining an archaeological
style of enquiry that allows for indeterminacy and open-endedness in the study of human interactions.
Supplementary material is available from the journal website
German, and Dutch Mesolithic sites we will demonstrate that sites with no or very few lithics may in fact be common and represent other behavioural contexts or practices different from the sites which are characterized by large quantities of lithics. We argue that by not taking into consideration the importance of ‘lithicless’ sites, a bias is created, obscuring the very nature of hunter-gatherer behaviour during the Mesolithic.
Netherlands, and 3) they currently define the southernmost extension of the Hamburgian in the country. In this paper specific characteristics (site location, raw material use, inter-site variability and dating) of Hamburgian sites in the central Netherlands are presented and briefly compared with the Hamburgian record from the northern Netherlands. It is concluded that the area of the ice-pushed ridges formed an integral part of the territory of Hamburgian hunter-gatherers in the Netherlands. Furthermore, some suggestions are made for future research and for new initiatives serving the purpose of archaeological heritage management.
homogeneous at a landscape level; shifting patterns can be observed over the long-term at the regional level but also on the level of the individual site. In addition, on the basis of 14C dates there exist spatial configurations of statistically ‘contemporaneous’ pit hearth features. A number of possible functions, including pits for roasting, cooking and smoking food, the heating of flint and other stone, and in particular the production of tar are discussed in more detail. It is clear, however, that there is a lot to be said about ‘pit hearths’ and that, despite the vast body of data, there is still no consensus on their function or functions.
was carried out by several research institutes and commercial companies in order to study and publish three settlement sites of the Single Grave Culture located in the Western Netherlands. These sites were excavated more than twenty years ago, but unfortunately the results were only scarcely published, and mostly in Dutch. This research project provided an excellent opportunity to unlock the high quality
archaeological information. The presence of organic remains and numerous artefacts in cultural layers and the thorough excavation of
these layers have produced a wealth of data regarding Late Neolithic behavioural variability in a dynamic wetland landscape. In this
article, a summary of the results of this project will be presented.
Tijdens het onderzoek zijn twee steentijdvindplaatsen aangetroffen: van de Ahrensburgercultuur en de Vlaardingercultuur. Beide perioden zijn in Zutphen nooit eerder aangetroffen en daarom zeer bijzonder. Daarnaast zijn er bewoningssporen uit de ijzertijd aangetroffen en sporen van agrarische activiteiten uit de middeleeuwen en vroege nieuwe tijd. De eerste grootschalige ingrepen in het terrein vonden pas laat in de 18e eeuw plaats bij het aanleggen van een vestinglinie. Laat in de 19e eeuw werd er in die vestinglinie een gevangenis gebouwd die later de jeugdgevangenis werd. Het terrein van deze jeugdgevangenis blijft als een relict uit het verleden behouden en wordt ontwikkeld door BijOnt tot een nieuwe wijk in het Waterkwartier.
Coined in 1998 by archaeologist Bryony Coles, ‘Doggerland’ has become a widely recognised name for the prehistoric landscapes, now submerged
beneath the North Sea. For more than 100 years, scholars have suspected remains of these landscapes and their inhabitants to have survived, but direct evidence such as bone and stone tools has long been relatively
sparse. Today, much more is known about the preservation of prehistoric landforms, as well as the material remains of animals, humans and
artefacts. As part of the NWO-funded project ‘Resurfacing Doggerland’, thousands of finds, collected on Dutch beaches and retrieved from
fishing nets, are now being studied in detail. The results will provide new insights into the relationship between climate-induced sea-level
rise and socio-cultural processes.
verschijnsel: een product van sedimentatie, erosie en een
stijgende zeespiegel. Zo’n miljoen jaar was die vorm
anders geweest: de Noordzee lag vaak droog en je kon
naar Engeland lopen. Onze huidige kust lag aan de rand
van een reusachtig dal: Doggerland. Een rijke wereld die
8000 jaar geleden onder de golven verdween.
(Verschenen als hoofdstuk in 'Nog meer wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland', uitgeverij Ambo|Anthos)
The full book is freely accessible online: https://www.sidestone.com/books/doggerland-lost-world-under-the-north-sea
The full book is freely accessible online: https://www.sidestone.com/books/doggerland-lost-world-under-the-north-sea
From its founding in 1918, the Biologisch-Archaeologisch Instituut has carried out research on stone-age hunter-gatherers, the start and the development of prehistoric farming communities, burial mounds and settlements on the sandy soils, and the occupation of the terp-mound district. This article presents the highlights of a century-long research history and identifies current developments.
This book is an edited version of Astrup’s doctoral dissertation (Aarhus University 2018), thus presenting the core of his work on human responses to sealevel change during the Mesolithic of southern
Scandinavia (9500–4000 BC). The study area comprises Denmark, southern Sweden, and smaller parts of southern Norway and northern Germany – a vast area bearing an extremely rich archaeological record,
but also a complex geological history related to effects of glacio-isostasy and relative sea-level fluctuations. With regard to the Mesolithic, the area is not only well known for many iconic on-land sites, such as Skateholm, Tågerup, Ageröd, Ringkloster, Vedbæk and Hohen Viecheln, just to mention a few, but also for its rich offshore archaeological record.
The submerged coastal zones in the southern Baltic have been subject to extensive underwater surveying, having delivered huge numbers of well-preserved finds and sites unequalled anywhere else on the globe. But as Astrup states, little synthetic work has been done as yet, whilst hypotheses about how Mesolithic hunter-gatherers ‘adapted’ to Postglacial environmental change and sea-level rise, in particular,
are still based on old, coarse-grained models, as well as generalised assumptions relying on rather plain archaeological observations at site level. With this book, it is Astrup’s intent to make a difference, by evaluating the sea-level record and developing new models of coastal displacement, and confrontation of these models with the archaeological record to evaluate the validity of prevailing archaeological
hypotheses about changes in subsistence (increased exploitation of marine resources) and socio-cultural aspects such as sedentariness and territoriality. By taking into account various potential issues of representativeness of the archaeological record – e.g. what does the inland record of the Maglemose tell us about the exploitation of the coastal zone? – as well as biased contrasts in the conceptualisation of cultural characteristics – the Maglemose as forest and marsh dwellers, the Kongemose as coastal dwellers (Astrup 2018 p. 13) – Astrup has given himself a highly ambitious task.
KAI NIEDERHÖFER. Archäologische Fundstellen im ostfriesischen Wattenmeer. Siedlungsgeschichte einer untergegangenen Landschaft bis 1570. 2016.
CLIVE WADDINGTON & CLIVE BONSALL. Archaeology and environment on the North Sea littoral: a case study from Low Hauxley. 2016.