Barrow Excavations in the Eight Beatitudes. The Bronze Age Cemetery between Toterfout & Halve Mijl, North Brabant. II. The Implications

Abstract

(p. 11)

What follows will therefore have to be regarded as an attempt, based on the Toterfout-Halve Mijl group, to bring together the knowledge gained so far inthe Netherlands concerning the burial ritual for the time covering, by and large, the Bronze Age periods Montelius I-III. Structurally perhaps the richest period of our prehistory, it is undoubtedly the poorest from a material point of view. Sharp indeed is the contrast with the grave furniture of the preceding Neolithic and Aeneolithic barrows, and no less with the Urnfield material from the later ring ditch cemeteries of the Late Bronze and the Iron Age. The cordoned cinerary urns of 'Deverel' type, dating from the Middle and Late Bronze Age, will come in for special consideration. The Iron Age ring ditch urnfields, with their interesting timber structures, fall outside the scope of this study. A comprehensive survey of this rich Dutch material is also much to be desired.