Changing landscape and grazing: macroremains from the terp Peins-east, province of Friesland, the Netherlands

This article seeks to contribute some new insights to the discussion about the colonisation of the North-Netherlands coastal area in the Iron Age. The aim of the study presented here was to investigate whether archaeobotanical research can demonstrate the absence or presence of grazing and the changes in vegetation that follow the development of the salt marsh and that may be related to activities connected with human occupation. The material studied was sampled in the terp of Peins in the Dutch province of Friesland during the 1999 excavation. The beginnings of this terp can be dated in the first century A.D., although a small dike and two parallel ditches preceded it. The macroremains from these ditches proved useful in describing the changes in the salt marsh vegetation. It was shown that the salt marsh was not used for grazing cattle prior to habitation. Grazing only started at the time the first terp podium was raised.