Archaeologists from Leiden University and the municipality of Apeldoorn excavated two prehistoric burial mounds from around 300 BC on Kroondomein Het Loo near the 'Echoput'. They recently had the opportunity to present the results to Her Majesty the Queen.
In the woods of Kroondomein Het Loo are dozens of prehistoric burial mounds, clustered in more or less regular 'burial mound landscapes'. Such burial mound landscapes occur throughout Europe. In the Netherlands alone there must have been more than 100,000. How and when they originated, however, is not yet clear. It is only known that they date from the last three millennia before our era.
The 'Echo Well'
To find out more, Leiden archaeologists led by Dr David Fontijn, with the cooperation of Kroondomein Het Loo, investigated two large burial mounds and their surroundings at the 'Echoput' in Apeldoorn. They did this together with the municipality of Apeldoorn and the Cultural Heritage Agency.
The excavation has yielded a lot of information, says Fontijn. The burial mounds are located on the highest point of a natural hillock and are covered with sods. The site may have been a moor as early as the second millennium BC, kept open by the sheep of generations of prehistoric humans. But around 300 BC it was decided to bury an important person from the community on the highest point of a natural hill.
Twin Graves
Fontijn:“We can reconstruct almost exactly how our ancestors carefully built a round burial mound with a platform using sometimes ten kilos of heath sods.” Shortly after the first burial, another person must have died who was buried in exactly the same way. The researchers therefore speak of a twin grave. The burial mounds are so similar that the dead were probably closely related.
The construction of the hills must have disturbed the landscape considerably, but after a few decades the site seems to have been used as pastureland again. Apparently ritual and economic practices could be reconciled in this prehistoric community.
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