Terug naar het Ballooërveld (Dr.), deel 2

Samenvatting

Return to the Ballooërveld (province of Drenthe), part 2. In Paleo-aktueel 22 (2011) the discovery of several human bones in a heathland known as Ballooërveld was described. The bones were found in 2004, lying near a low mound. The skeletal remains were handed over to the police, who requested the Netherlands Forensic Institute to examine them. This institute concluded that they represented at least four adult individuals and that the remains were older than 20 years. We examined them again, because we suspected that they might date from the Late Middle Ages. Our analysis of the 15 bones revealed that they represent the remains of eight individuals (4 males, 2 females and 2 of unknown sex). No cause of death could be established. Four of them could be dated to the Late Medieval period (individuals 1, 6, 7 and 8). According to the radiocarbon dates, the others are younger. The individuals 2, 3, 4 and 5 could, theoretically, have met their end at the same time, even at a single event. Yet, it is uncertain when this occasion took place and what caused their death. It is suggested that they may have been vagrants. In the late 17th century the States-General decided that vagrants could be killed if they caused trouble and resisted arrest. They may have been hunted down by villagers and, after a skirmish, murdered. Their remains were then buried at a spot near the village boundary which had been in use until the end of the Late Middle Ages for the burial of executed criminals.