De lege vierde eeuw

The hiatus of the 4th century AD in the terp region
During the 20th century, the population history of the terp region
of the northern Netherlands during the Migration Period
was hotly debated. The new idea that the different material
culture of the 5th century, compared to the Roman Iron Age,
indicates immigration by Anglo-Saxons was not accepted by
everyone, on nationalistic but also on theoretical grounds, since
there is no one-to-one relation between material culture and
ethnic identity.
This article summarizes and examines arguments and evidence.
Pottery research supports the idea that most of the terp
region was not inhabited during the 4th century, with some
exceptions such as Ezinge in the province of Groningen, and
Jelsum and Marssum in the province of Friesland. The hiatus is
especially clear when we compare coastal pottery to the pottery
of the inland Pleistocene region, where habitation and the development
of pottery style continued without interruption.
Overseeing all the evidence, it seems that the terp region,
especially the eastern part, the province of Groningen, was part
of a socio-cultural network that extended far into northwestern
Germany. Where habitation was uninterrupted within this
network, in northwestern Germany, northern Drenthe, and in
a small number of settlements in the terp region, pottery style
developed in largely the same way, often with decoration and
shapes in the style that is traditionally called Anglo-Saxon.
Newcomers from the Anglo-Saxon regions brought their own
pottery and other objects in the 5th century, but their pottery
resembled local pottery.
The socio-cultural network also appears from burial ritual.
The isolated burials and single bones from before the 4th century
clearly differ from the cemeteries with inhumations and
cremations that appear in the 5th century. However, already
in the 3rd century, there are indications of changing traditions.
Small cemeteries from that period are found near houses
in several settlements in the northern Netherlands and northwestern
Germany. In the course of the Migration Period, these
develop into mixed cemeteries that belong to settlements.
It can be concluded that the material culture and burial customs
of the northern Netherlands in the 5th century would not
have been very different if habitation had been continuous.