Page 313 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - The Netherlands

DRENTHE  311

Typical beakers
after which the Tips for Drivers
Beaker People are Length: 95 km (60 miles)
named. Pottery Stopping-off places: All villages
shards of these on the route offer refreshments
containers are the and meals. To see most megaliths
most common finds
Beaker Pitcher you will need to leave your car
in the megaliths.
and walk, as only a few are by the
roadside. They are almost
Annen 2 Anloo is one invariably well sign-posted and
of the most make excellent picnic spots.
GASTERSE picturesque Collared flask
DUINEN Anloo Drenthe villages.
3 The largest megalith in Holland
BALLOOËRVELD Eext measures 22.5 m (74 ft), has 9 top
stones and 26 upright stones.
Ballooërkuil Gieten Excavations were carried out in
Balloo Borger in 1685, but none of the
finds has been preserved.
4 Het Flint’n Hoes, the
Rolde Nationaal Hunebedden
DROUWENERZAND Informatiecentrum,
(National Megalith
Drouwen
Information Centre),
has been set up beside
Grolloo Hondsrug Holland’s largest megalith.
Buinen
5 The Exloo Necklace
Borger was found in the peat in
1881. It is made of beads
of tin, faience, bronze and
Schoonloo amber, which is evidence
of trading links between
Uitzichttoren Exloo prehistoric Drenthe and
the Baltic countries,
Cornwall and even Egypt.
Odoorn
ELLERTSVELD Valthe
Open-air Flint was the main
Schoonoord museum material used by the
hunter-gatherers of
prehistoric Drenthe
’t Haantje to make such items as
knives, axes, scrapers
SLEENERZAND and arrowheads.

Megaliths (hunebedden)
There are no longer any complete
megaliths. Until 1734, when trading in
boulders was forbidden, thousands of megaliths
were hacked up to be used as building material.
There are definite traces of 88 megaliths, 82 of
them in Drenthe. The 54 surviving megaliths are 6 De Papeloze Kerk (the Popeless Church)
all restorations. The most common finds from This megalith is so called because of the Calvinist
excavations are pottery shards. Scrapers, axes, sermons that were held here in the early 16th
arrowheads, and amber and copper jewellery – century against the “popish” (Catholic) faith. In 1959,
all extremely valuable trading goods in Drenthe the megalith was restored to its original state, to
in 3000 BC – are much rarer finds. the extent of covering half of the tomb with sand.

310-311_EW_Netherlands.indd 311 16/01/17 12:06 pm