Restanten van rituelen. Deposities in het oudste huis van Ezinge

Evidence of rituals - Depositions in the oldest
house of Ezinge
Preservation conditions differ considerably
from one part of the northern Netherlands
to another. In the province of Drenthe, faint
traces of settlements with houses of a few
generations have been found on the acidic
sandy soils together with only potsherds and
stones, whereas the bogs and moors have
yielded many excellently preserved organic
remains. Thanks to the work of Wijnand van der
Sanden we know much about ritual practices
associated with the liminal bogs and moors.
However, as organic materials often played an
important role in ritual deposition, we know
hardly anything about ritual practices in the
settlements on the sandy soils.
The northern coastal area is entirely different
in this respect. In this former salt marsh,
settlements were built on artificial dwelling
mounds known as terpen that were inhabited
for many centuries or even millennia. Owing
to the excellent preservation conditions of
wet clay and dung, organic remains, including
the lower parts of houses, are usually well
preserved, making it possible to identify
evidence of rituals and learn more about ritual
practice in these settlements (Nieuwhof 2015).
But as the focus of research has always been
on the terpen, we are less well informed about
ritual practice outside the settlements, in the
liminal zones of this landscape. The sand and
peat landscapes of the interior and the clay
district of the northern coastal area may be
considered complementary: ritual deposits
in the bogs and moors give an idea of what
may be expected in liminal zones outside the
terp settlements of the north, while evidence
of rituals in the terp settlements shows what
kind of rituals may have been performed in
contemporaneous settlements in inland sandy
areas.
The most extensively excavated terp settlement
is Ezinge in the province of Groningen. This
settlement, which was first occupied around
500 BC, yielded a lot of evidence of rituals
showing the diversity of ritual practice
in settlements. Many of the deposits are
associated with houses. The oldest excavated
house was a longhouse incorporating a byre.
The house’s building phase and as many as
three consecutive occupation phases, each
with a separate hearth, could be identified.
Rituals were performed during the dwelling’s
construction and after each phase, before
the floor was raised with a new layer and
repairs were made to the house. During the
construction work three animals (a horse, a
cow and a sheep) were killed and parts of them
were probably eaten; the remainder was placed
against the outer wall and covered with the first
build-up layer. When the occupants abandoned
the house they arranged large wooden objects
such as parts of disc wheels on the floor. Other
items, in particular cube-shaped stones, were
deposited in the consecutive hearths. These
deposits demonstrate that the house was of
paramount importance to its inhabitants, and
they also imply continuity of the household.
Things were undoubtedly no different on the
inland sandy soils. Although any evidence of
them is hard to identify, similar rituals must
have been performed in settlements in those
areas too.