Kingdoms of the Netherlands - Early Netherlands

This region of the Low Countries comprised the coastal area of today's upper Netherlands between the Scheldt estuaries of the north-east to the mouth of the Weser. The north-western half, which later became known as West Frisia, emerged as a distinct region in Europe during the feuds of the thirteenth century AD. It was this part which evolved into the modern Netherlands. The north-eastern remnant became divided as East Frisia and was eventually absorbed into Germany.

During the 'Last Glacial Period' (about 120,000-9500 BC), the area was dry, cold steppe which was populated by an array of large mammals. In its present form, the region was created during the ending of the most recent ice age. It was part of the North Sea basin which largely was shaped by rivers and the sea constantly altering the low-lying geography.

The North Sea itself sat far to the north of the Netherlands. The Low Countries at this time formed one contiguous land mass with the British Isles via the sweeping grass plains of Doggerland (see feature link for more on Doggerland). Until its final submergence beneath the encroaching sea perhaps as late as 5000 BC it was Doggerland which hosted hunter-gatherers of the identical Sauveterrian and British Sauveterrian cultures.

Following the loss of Doggerland to the North Sea no later than 5000 BC, the remaining narrow Frisian coastal strip was poor marshy ground, covered with lakes, estuaries, and swamps and exposed to sea incursions. It was very thinly populated by people who dominated much of the land to the north of the main rivers. These people from around 5500 BC onwards were members of the Swifterbant culture which had connections to the Ertebølle culture of Jutland.

Full-blown Neolithic Farmer culture arrived in the region by about 4300-4000 BC, and a gradual agricultural transformation took place. These farmers started utilising the clay soils, with archaeological evidence revealing the building of terps: large man-made raised earthworks built as a basis for dwellings, possibly combined with the growing of crops and animal husbandry.

The skeleton of a Neolithic man was found here from this period, named Cees by archaeologists. There also exists evidence of cattle, which could make Frisians one of the oldest still-surviving cattle population units in Europe.

Farmers only gradually settled the region during the middle-to-late Neolithic, finally reaching this corner of Europe during the late fifth millennium BC. The Funnelbeaker culture extended from Denmark into the northern Low Countries during the fourth and third millennia BC. In the modern province of Drente its people erected megalithic burial mounds ('hunebeds') in the fourth millennium BC.

The Single Grave culture succeeded the Funnelbeaker as a local form of the widespread pastoralist Corded Ware culture, and then the northern edges of Bell Beaker culture intruded into the region, both in the mid-third millennium BC. This is roughly the start of the period which incorporates the entirely legendary 'Folk Mothers' (and see feature link for more on its story).

The oldest traces of more recognisable proto-Frisian population in the Low Countries can be linked to the Bronze Age Elp culture, which was related to the Tumulus culture. Earthenware pottery of fairly low quality has been unearthed in southern West Frisia, part of the Hoogkarspel and Hilversum cultures, important parts of the Elp culture.

Another pottery form appeared around 600 BC in the shape of the Ruinen-Wommels type, with finds in an urnfield at Ruinen in southern Drenthe and on a terp at Wommels in Frisia.

By the end of the Bronze Age the climate in Scandinavia had deteriorated, with this being at least one trigger for an outwards migration of Germanic tribes from southern Scandinavia and the Central European coastline. This expansion reached the coastal territories of north-western Germany and East Frisia by about 700 BC.

When writing up his account of Europe's tribes in the first century AD, Tacitus mentioned a collective called the Ingaevones as inhabiting the north (see feature link), with this collective including the Cimbri, Teutoni, Saxoni, Angli, and Chauci. The Istaevones were in the west, including amongst their number the Frisii and Batavi in the north-western section and the Sicambri and Alemanni farther south.

However, as seems to have been the case along the entire southern edge of Germanic expansion, there was a Northern Celtic presence there too. Several Celtic fields are known on the Frisian-Drentian plateau, more specifically on the so-called 'Noordse Veld' (the 'Northern Field', near Groningen). Burial mounds and urnfields have been found across the wider area, along with a small temple, several walled enclosures, and fortified annexe structures, all dating to the middle and late Iron Age.

Additionally, the first collection of Frisian names (Cruptorix, Verritus, and Mallorix) is probably Celtic, while the second collection is definitively Germanic. This Celtic/Germanic hybridisation was common at this time along the shared merger zone. The Belgae would seem to be a product of such hybridisation.

Sky burial rituals of Iron Age coastal Frisians also show parallels with those of the Celts, as do burial practices. It was highly likely to be from this same coastal strip that combined Saxon and Frisian settlers headed for the southern shores of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. The language of the remaining population is still considered to be the closest surviving non-English relative to modern English.

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