Everyone has heard of Stonehenge
in England and dolmens and menhirs in France. But who knows of even older and more numerous megalithes in The Netherlands? Even most of the Dutch themselves are unaware of the richness of the prehistoric monuments in their own country. But they exist..!,and they are there for over 5000 years. Older than the Egyptian pyramids! Built of huge granite stones, some of them weighing over 25,000 kilograms, dragged to the spot and piled up to form a rectangular stonegrave. Unbelievable, but true.
In Drenthe there are no
mountains or rocks. But hunebedden are made of huge stones. Where did they come from? The answer is: from Scandinavia. About 200,000 years ago, during an ice-period, most of northern Europe including our country was covered by a thick layer of ice. The big boulders of which the hunebedden are made of have been transported to The Netherlands by slow moving ice-glaciers. Even today, digging in Drenthe's soil, smaller and bigger stones emerge. About 4000 BC the hunters that visited Drenthe before, changed their culture and lifestyle radically. They learned to grow wheat, to domesticate cattle and to build farmhouses. They settled here as the first farmers in the region.
A dolmen (also known as
cromlech, anta, Hünengrab, Hunebed, quoit, and portal dolmen) is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (table). Most date from the early Neolithic period (4000 to 3000 BC). Dolmens were usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrow, though in many cases that covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the burial mound intact.
"Dolmen" originates from the expression
taol maen, which means "stone table" in Breton, and was first used archaeologically by Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne. The etymology of the German Hünenbett or Hünengrab and Dutch Hunebed (lit. Huns' bed) all evoke the image of giants building the structures. Of other Celtic languages, "cromlech" derives from Welsh and "quoit" is commonly used in Cornwall. Anta is the term used in Portugal, and dös in Sweden.
In Mecklenburg and Pomerania (Germany)
and Drenthe (The Netherlands), large numbers of these graves were disturbed when harbours, towns, and cities were built. The boulders were used in construction and road building. There are still many thousands left today in Europe.
A great many examples can
also be found on the Channel Island of Jersey, such as La Pouquelaye de Faldouet, La Hougue des Géonnais and La Sergeanté. The most famous of these sites is La Hougue Bie a 6,000 year old neolithic site that sits inside a large mound; later a chapel was built on the top of the mound.
Hunebedden are chamber tombs similar
to dolmens and date to the middle Neolithic (Funnelbeaker culture, 4th millennium BC). They consist of a kerb surrounding an oval mound which covered a rectangular chamber of stones with the entrance on one of the long sides. Some have a more complex layout and include an entrance passage giving them a T-shape. It has been suggested that this means they are related to the passage graves found in Denmark and elsewhere.