Early European Cultures

The crossover between the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in Europe (and more specifically Northern Europe) took place about a millennium after the wide-ranging Magdalenian had faded. The later Swiderian culture faded around 8200 BC, but by then the Maglemosian had already emerged across areas of northern and Central Europe.

That culture concluded as the North Sea finished swallowing Doggerland (see feature link). The Kongemose succeeded the Maglemosian in Denmark and part of Sweden, while the Janislavice continued on its eastern flank. In Western Europe it was the Swifterbant culture which eventually emerged to encompass the north-western area of the Low Countries.

By about 3400 BC the low-lying region in which the Swifterbant culture was based was largely no longer able to support settlement. Gradual flooding in the almost fully agrarian north-west Low Countries gradually drove out much of the population. What remained in the north of the late Swifterbant transitioned directly into the western branch of the Funnelbeaker culture.

In the south of its region the Swifterbant had already faded and transitioned into a local Hazendonk 3 group. That also faded around 3400 BC to be absorbed by the Vlaardingen culture, while the eastern branch of the Hazendonk 3 simultaneously adapted to become the Stein group.

The type site was Vlaardingen, located near Rotterdam in the Dutch province of South Holland. The culture emerged on the western edge of the Funnelbeaker to cover the main river deltas in the region. This was just as the nearby Michelsberg culture was also fading in favour of the new Wartberg culture in this period of transition and change.

Some Dutch archaeologists have claimed that the Hazendonk 3 group diverged into two distinct geographic and cultural successors. The western branch was located in the coastal wetlands and the main river deltas, and this has been framed as evolving into the Vlaardingen.

The eastern/southern branch was located on the inland sandy uplands of the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium. This has been framed as evolving into the Stein group which has also been framed as a full-blown archaeological culture in its own right. A longstanding debate in Dutch Neolithic archaeology concerns the distinction between both, although in essence those cultural groups were all closely interconnected.

In the coastal zone outside the immediate Vlaardingen area the settlements were located mainly on elevated spots in the midst of extended freshwater swamps behind the coastal dunes. They were also located in the coastal dune area itself, along the levees and river dunes in the main river deltas, in the eastern Netherlands, and also in the cover-sand area of the Noord-Brabant region. People preferred to live in the ever-changing marshlands because the opportunities outweighed the risk.

People of both the Vlaardingen and Stein group were semi-sedentary, raising cattle and cultivating crops. However, hunting and fishing remained important means of subsistence in the Vlaardingen and there exists extensive evidence to support its presence at levee sites, whilst sites in the coastal dune area mainly found use in terms of cattle herding and agriculture.

The material culture and burial practices of the Vlaardingen and Stein show close resemblances, but also some notable differences. Vlaardingen settlements show no production of axes and generally no local blade production. Despite the intensive exchange networks which were in place, the skills to produce these objects had not been shared by the people of the Stein group.

Over the course of nine hundred years the people of the Vlaardingen relied heavily on importing distinct locally-produced high-quality flint blades and polished stone axes from the Stein region or the Hainaut-Hesbaye regions. Other sources were Lousberg (near Aachen in Germany) with its high-quality flint.

North-western Flanders functioned as an interaction zone between the Vlaardingen and the Deûle-Escaut group which was providing flint which came from Cap Blanc Nez on the northern French coast. The people of the Vlaardingen also knapped small pebbles of low quality which came from the local from river systems, known as 'pebble-Meuse eggs', for the production of small and simple basic tools for daily use such as scrapers and borers.

Another source for small basic tools was Meuse terrace flint, forming weathered, rolled nodules in river gravel deposits along the middle and lower reaches of the River Meuse. Broken highly-polished flint axes and blades were commonly recycled as cores for the production of flakes.

The simple style of the hand-formed, urn-shaped s-profile and general pottery with their flat or concave bottoms and almost no wall decoration was characteristic both for the Vlaardingen and the Stein group. This style bore similarities to those of the Swifterbant in the north and the Seine-Oise-Marne culture in the south.

Although both groups favoured cremation, their burial practices differed significantly. People of the Stein built a collective megalithic gallery, with distinct archery as grave goods. This was not the case in the Vlaardingen where only individual simple graves have been found on level ground, without any grave goods.

The Vlaardingen culture and the Stein group were both initially classified as part of the Wartberg culture. Only later with the uncovering of further evidence did it transpire that the Wartberg had nothing in common with these two cultural groups.

Again at the start, due to their artefacts being almost identical, the chronological phases of the Vlaardingen and the Stein were primarily classified on the basis of their trade interactions with neighbouring cultures in terms of material culture. The cultures and practices of the Vlaardingen and Stein were eventually absorbed into and succeeded by the Single Grave culture, a regional variant of the Corded Ware complex.

European Kingdoms

Early Cultures

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