Wood usage at Dutch Neolithic wetland sites

• Published in: Quaternary international 2017-05, Vol.436, p.64-82
• Main Author: Out, Welmoed A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alluvial woodland; Construction wood; Firewood; Semi-agricultural societies; Wood selection; Wooden artefacts
• ISSN: 1040-6182; 1873-4553
• DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2015.12.055

While archaeobotanical research on neolithisation often focuses on subsistence and farming practices, also wood exploitation practices can provide information on continuity and change during the neolithisation process. Earlier research has revealed that wood exploitation strategies in Dutch wetlands remained mostly stable during the transition from the Mesolithic to the Early and Middle Neolithic. The development throughout the later Neolithic is however poorly understood since wood exploitation strategies from later Neolithic sites in the same region were until now hardly available. The first part of this paper presents unworked wood, artefact wood, construction wood and charcoal from the Middle and Late Neolithic site of Hekelingen III, a semi-agricultural, non-permanent site of the Vlaardingen group. The site, located on a levee along a gully, was repetitively occupied during three phases and consisted of 12 refuse clusters. Questions concern the vegetation and wood exploitation strategies for construction wood, artefacts and fuel. While the comparison between unworked and exploited wood indicates the importance of an opportunistic use of those taxa that were available in abundance, the wood choice for posts and specific artefacts shows some evidence of a selective use of wood and imports, and a selection of oak wood for a burial context. The wood exploitation strategies of Hekelingen III are compared with those of the Vlaardingen sites of Vlaardingen, Hazendonk and Hellevoetsluis, thus for the first time offering a more general overview of wood exploitation in the Middle and Late Neolithic Vlaardingen group. The new data does not only provide new information for this region and period but also allows a comparison with earlier Mesolithic and Neolithic wetland sites, thus providing long-term information about the development of woodland exploitation throughout the Neolithic. The stable picture also provides a hypothesis about wood exploitation at dryland sites for which data on wood exploitation is hardly available.