GRAFHEUVELS OP DE ONSTWEDDERHOLTE (GEM. STADSKANAAL, GR.)

Samenvatting

In the province of Groningen with its vast Holocene peat and clay deposits, prehisto­ric burial mounds are a rare phenomenon. The few mounds known were excavated du­ring the reclamation boom in the first half of this century and thus disappeared. Ae­rial photographs, however, have brought to light unknown sites of completely levelled burial mounds. A group of three is situated on an ice-pushed ridge near Onstwedde, in the eastern part of the province. Excava­tions there took place in 1986 and 1990. They were found to be of Middle Bronze Age date, each with a different peripheral structure and built on former settlement ground from the Beaker period. Two of them are thought to have been erected as early as the Late Neolithic. The 1990 ex­cavation of two of the monuments is dis­cussed here. As to the whole group of three, there are plans to restore them to their Middle Bronze Age appearance.