Marieke Doorenbosch | Leiden University (original) (raw)
Papers by Marieke Doorenbosch
Palaeohistoria 63/64 (2022/2023), 2023
In the research project The Avellino Event: Cultural and Demographic Effects of the Great Bronze ... more In the research project The Avellino Event: Cultural and Demographic Effects of the Great Bronze Age Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the recording of local and regional changes in the vegetation of the landscapes of the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin (southern Lazio, Italy) before and after the Bronze Age eruption of Somma-Vesuvius (c. 1900 BCE) was central to answer the project’s central question, which revolved around the nature of the distal effects of this high-magnitude eruption on the conditions of living for the Bronze Age human population inhabiting these landscapes. If adverse effects of the ash fall in these areas were minor, the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin, located about 125 km north of the Vesuvius, could well have been the refuge area people might have fled to in their attempts to escape the pyroclastic flows that eventually would bury parts of Campania around the Vesuvius below a thick layer of tephra. If adverse effects of the ash fall were major, the situation might, likewise, have led to changes in vegetation but could have resulted in a decline in human and animal presence due to toxicity, for instance. In both scenarios, either population growth due to in-migration or population decline due to environmental impact, we expected to see changes in the vegetation record in the period during which the Avellino Event occurred. To test our hypotheses, we performed archaeobotanical research, using pollen and macro-remains, on stratified soil sequences from test pits in the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin containing the Avellino tephra layers, thereby guaranteeing sound chronological control. (The research revealed the presence of other known distal tephras as well.) Contrary to our expectations, the research did not provide proof of any significant changes in the vegetation around the date of the Avellino Event, nor did it provide any strong signs of human impact on these landscapes in the longer term before and after the distal ash fall, thereby indicating low population levels during the final part of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) and the initial phase of the Middle Bronze Age. Although this finding about human impact is an important outcome, it is not the only finding. The archaeobotanical research provided the project with high-resolution information on the vegetation and environmental conditions in the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin for the duration of the Bronze Age. This, in combination with the physical-geographical data collected during the project, added significantly to our ability to perform detailed palaeogeographical reconstruction of the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin. In addition, it increased our understanding of how the landscape had been settled during the Bronze Age (Sevink et al. 2022; Attema et al. in press). A final spin-off consisted of possible new information on the 4.2 ka climatic event that impacted Italy during later prehistory, as reflected in the pollen diagrams presented.
A plant macrofossil and palynological investigation of a peat deposit that contained two distal t... more A plant macrofossil and palynological investigation of a peat deposit that contained two distal tephra layers found at Femmina Morta, Fondi basin, southern Lazio, central Italy allowed the reconstruction of a late Early or early Middle Bronze Age landscape. The palynological data show a natural landscape that was unaltered by anthropogenic activity in which a mosaic of vegetation communities existed, each occupying areas that best suited them. Either Mediterranean or more temperate mid-latitude vegetation communities are represented, dependent on the abiotic (e.g. elevation, aspect, geology, edaphic and hydrology) or biotic (e.g. competition) circumstances. The plant macrofossil data and locally derived components of the pollen spectra show that the vegetation in and around the water body was stable. Both data sets indicate that sediment deposition took place in a lacustrine basin. At the point of sampling the water column was probably around 1 m deep and contained clear, calcareous, mesotrophic to eutrophic, slow moving to still fresh water. At the margins of the lake existed a reed swamp, composed of tall and shorter herbs. Evidence for brackish conditions nearby, probably on the beach ridge, is the presence of a small number of halophytic taxa. The palaeobotanical data suggest the deposition of the tephras did not affect the vegetation in the area. Charcoal deposition was probably the result of natural fires burning in the catchment.
Soil, 2016
The evolution of heathlands during the Holocene has been registered in various soil records. Pale... more The evolution of heathlands during the Holocene has been registered in various soil records. Paleoecological analyses of these records enable reconstruction of the changing economic and cultural management of heaths and the consequences for landscape and soils.
Heaths are characteristic components of cultural landscape mosaics on sandy soils in the Netherlands. The natural habitat of heather species was moorland. At first, natural events like forest fires and storms caused small-scale forest degradation; in addition on that, the forest degradation accelerated due to cultural activities like forest grazing, wood cutting, and shifting cultivation. Heather plants invaded degraded forest soils, and heaths developed. People learned to use the heaths for economic and cultural purposes. The impact of the heath management on landscape and soils was registered in soil records of barrows, drift sand sequences, and plaggic Anthrosols. Based on pollen diagrams of such records we could reconstruct that heaths were developed and used for cattle grazing before the Bronze Age. During the late Neolithic, the Bronze Age, and Iron Age, people created the barrow landscape on the ancestral heaths. After the Iron Age, people probably continued with cattle grazing on the heaths and plaggic agriculture until the early Middle Ages. Severe forest degradation by the production of charcoal for melting iron during the Iron Age till the 6th–7th century and during the 11th–13th century for the trade of wood resulted in extensive sand drifting, a threat to the valuable heaths. The introduction of the deep, stable economy and heath sods digging in the course of the 18th century resulted in acceleration of the rise of plaggic horizons, severe heath degradation, and again extension of sand drifting. At the end of the 19th century heath lost its economic value due to the introduction of chemical fertilizers. The heaths were transformed into "new" arable fields and forests, and due to deep ploughing most soil archives were destroyed. Since AD 1980, the remaining relicts of the ancestral heaths are preserved and restored in the frame of the programs to improve the regional and national geo-biodiversity. Despite the realization of many heath restoration projects during the last decades, the area of the present heaths is just a fraction of the heath areal in AD 1900.
During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of Twello (central Netherlands) a relati... more During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of
Twello (central Netherlands) a relatively well-preserved
Single Grave Culture burial was found. This offered the rare
opportunity to study this monument by using modern
techniques and to analyse it in its local and wider
archaeological and environmental setting. At fi rst sight, the
burial does not appear to deviate much from ‘the standard’
for the Single Grave Culture in the Netherlands. However,
when all excavation data and specialist analyses are
combined some interesting patterns emerge. Whereas the
Single Grave Culture is generally seen as a tradition that
had strong links with the north and east, the stone axe head
and fl int blade that were deposited in the grave rather point
to a southern origin. Chemical residue analyses and
palynological research indicate that the protruding foot
beaker that was found probably contained a primitive type of
wheat beer or porridge and may have been sealed with
animal fat. Furthermore it is demonstrated that the burial
played an important role in later landscape organisation and
was still perceived as an important location many centuries
after it had been erected.
Plant Ecology, 2006
As a reference for ongoing studies reconstructing past vegetation, climate and environment, polle... more As a reference for ongoing studies reconstructing past vegetation, climate and environment, pollen spectra in tundra peat profiles from Svalbard, were investigated. The base of tundra peat cores collected from Ny Å lesund, Stuphallet, Blomstrand and Isdammen has been 14 C dated to 350 -490 BP, 5710 BP, 4670 BP and 700 -900 BP, respectively. The Stuphallet and Blomstrand (Brøggerhalvøya) peat profiles were composed of a peat developed in a nutrient enriched and wet tundra environment of steep birdcliffs. Pollen concentrations were low, Brassicaceae pollen dominated the whole profile. In contrast, the Ny Å lesund and Isdammen profiles contained high pollen concentrations and suggest a nutrient-poor, dry tundra environment. Pollen of the polar willow, Salix polaris, occurred commonly throughout all four peat profiles. In the relatively high resolution (10 years per peat core sample) analysis of the Ny Å lesund core, starting before or at the beginning of the Little Ice Age (LIA, 16th-mid 19th century), dominance of Saxifraga oppositifolia indicates a cold and dry climate, followed by a decline of Saxifraga oppositifolia and gradual increase of Salix polaris after the LIA, which indicates a moist and milder climate.
Plant Ecology, 2006
The response of tundra plants to enhanced UV-B radiation simulating 15 and 30% ozone depletion wa... more The response of tundra plants to enhanced UV-B radiation simulating 15 and 30% ozone depletion was studied at two high arctic sites (Isdammen and Adventdalen, 78°N, Svalbard).The set-up of the UV-B supplementation systems is described, consisting of large and small UV lamp arrays, installed in 1996 and 2002. After 7 years of exposure to enhanced UV-B radiation, plant cover, density, morphological (leaf fresh and dry weight, leaf thickness, leaf area, reproductive and ecophysiological parameters leaf UV-B absorbance, leaf phenolic content, leaf water content) were not affected by enhanced UV-B radiation. DNA damage in the leaves was not increased with enhanced UV-B in Salix polaris and Cassiope tetragona. DNA damage in Salix polaris leaves was higher than in leaves of C. tetragona. The length of male gametophyte moss plants of Polytrichum hyperboreum was reduced with elevated UV-B as well as the number of Pedicularis hirsuta plants per plot, but the inflorescence length of Bistorta vivipara was not significantly affected. We discuss the possible causes of tolerance of tundra plants to UV-B (absence of response to enhanced UV-B) in terms of methodology (supplementation versus exclusion), ecophysiological adaptations to UV-B and the biogeographical history of polar plants
Books by Marieke Doorenbosch
Articles by Marieke Doorenbosch
TMA57, 2017
Ongoing research on the impact of the Avellino eruption on Early Bronze Age migration to the sout... more Ongoing research on the impact of the Avellino eruption on Early Bronze Age migration to the southern basins of Lazio, where the distal Avellino tephra is preserved, aims for a palaeogeographical reconstruction of the Early Bronze Age landscape. This reconstruction pinpoints locations where both the chance of tephra preservation and Early Bronze Age habitation are highest. A suitability map indicates those areas: fluvial levees, lake edges and infilled palaeovalleys. Additionally, initial palaeo-ecological analysis of peat in the Fondi basin shows that tephra deposition did have a local effect on vegetation, but a limited effect on regional vegetation, while the overall human signal in the pollen re-cord is weak. This suggests that the Pontine plain was thinly populated during and directly after the Avellino event. Nevertheless, the suitability map can be used to investigate yet unknown locations for Early Bronze Age stratigraphy.
Book chapter by Marieke Doorenbosch
Groups of burial mounds may be among the most tangible and visible remains of Europe’s prehistori... more Groups of burial mounds may be among the most tangible and visible remains of Europe’s prehistoric past. Yet, not much is known on how “barrow landscapes” came into being . This book deals with that topic, by presenting the results of archaeological research carried out on a group of just two barrows that crown a small hilltop near the Echoput (“echo-well”) in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.
In 2007, archaeologists of the Ancestral Mounds project of Leiden University carried out an excavation of parts of these mounds and their immediate environment. They discovered that these mounds are rare examples of monumental barrows from the later part of the Iron Age. They were probably built at the same time, and their similarities are so conspicuous that one might speak of “twin barrows”.
The research team was able to reconstruct the long-term history of this hilltop. We can follow how the hilltop that is now deep in the forests of the natural reserve of the Kroondomein Het Loo, once was an open place in the landscape. With pragmatism not unlike our own, we see how our prehistoric predecessors carefully managed and maintained the open area for a long time, before it was transformed into a funerary site. The excavation yielded many details on how people built the barrows by cutting and arranging heather sods, and how the mounds were used for burial rituals in the Iron Age.
Palaeohistoria 63/64 (2022/2023), 2023
In the research project The Avellino Event: Cultural and Demographic Effects of the Great Bronze ... more In the research project The Avellino Event: Cultural and Demographic Effects of the Great Bronze Age Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the recording of local and regional changes in the vegetation of the landscapes of the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin (southern Lazio, Italy) before and after the Bronze Age eruption of Somma-Vesuvius (c. 1900 BCE) was central to answer the project’s central question, which revolved around the nature of the distal effects of this high-magnitude eruption on the conditions of living for the Bronze Age human population inhabiting these landscapes. If adverse effects of the ash fall in these areas were minor, the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin, located about 125 km north of the Vesuvius, could well have been the refuge area people might have fled to in their attempts to escape the pyroclastic flows that eventually would bury parts of Campania around the Vesuvius below a thick layer of tephra. If adverse effects of the ash fall were major, the situation might, likewise, have led to changes in vegetation but could have resulted in a decline in human and animal presence due to toxicity, for instance. In both scenarios, either population growth due to in-migration or population decline due to environmental impact, we expected to see changes in the vegetation record in the period during which the Avellino Event occurred. To test our hypotheses, we performed archaeobotanical research, using pollen and macro-remains, on stratified soil sequences from test pits in the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin containing the Avellino tephra layers, thereby guaranteeing sound chronological control. (The research revealed the presence of other known distal tephras as well.) Contrary to our expectations, the research did not provide proof of any significant changes in the vegetation around the date of the Avellino Event, nor did it provide any strong signs of human impact on these landscapes in the longer term before and after the distal ash fall, thereby indicating low population levels during the final part of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) and the initial phase of the Middle Bronze Age. Although this finding about human impact is an important outcome, it is not the only finding. The archaeobotanical research provided the project with high-resolution information on the vegetation and environmental conditions in the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin for the duration of the Bronze Age. This, in combination with the physical-geographical data collected during the project, added significantly to our ability to perform detailed palaeogeographical reconstruction of the Agro Pontino and the Fondi basin. In addition, it increased our understanding of how the landscape had been settled during the Bronze Age (Sevink et al. 2022; Attema et al. in press). A final spin-off consisted of possible new information on the 4.2 ka climatic event that impacted Italy during later prehistory, as reflected in the pollen diagrams presented.
A plant macrofossil and palynological investigation of a peat deposit that contained two distal t... more A plant macrofossil and palynological investigation of a peat deposit that contained two distal tephra layers found at Femmina Morta, Fondi basin, southern Lazio, central Italy allowed the reconstruction of a late Early or early Middle Bronze Age landscape. The palynological data show a natural landscape that was unaltered by anthropogenic activity in which a mosaic of vegetation communities existed, each occupying areas that best suited them. Either Mediterranean or more temperate mid-latitude vegetation communities are represented, dependent on the abiotic (e.g. elevation, aspect, geology, edaphic and hydrology) or biotic (e.g. competition) circumstances. The plant macrofossil data and locally derived components of the pollen spectra show that the vegetation in and around the water body was stable. Both data sets indicate that sediment deposition took place in a lacustrine basin. At the point of sampling the water column was probably around 1 m deep and contained clear, calcareous, mesotrophic to eutrophic, slow moving to still fresh water. At the margins of the lake existed a reed swamp, composed of tall and shorter herbs. Evidence for brackish conditions nearby, probably on the beach ridge, is the presence of a small number of halophytic taxa. The palaeobotanical data suggest the deposition of the tephras did not affect the vegetation in the area. Charcoal deposition was probably the result of natural fires burning in the catchment.
Soil, 2016
The evolution of heathlands during the Holocene has been registered in various soil records. Pale... more The evolution of heathlands during the Holocene has been registered in various soil records. Paleoecological analyses of these records enable reconstruction of the changing economic and cultural management of heaths and the consequences for landscape and soils.
Heaths are characteristic components of cultural landscape mosaics on sandy soils in the Netherlands. The natural habitat of heather species was moorland. At first, natural events like forest fires and storms caused small-scale forest degradation; in addition on that, the forest degradation accelerated due to cultural activities like forest grazing, wood cutting, and shifting cultivation. Heather plants invaded degraded forest soils, and heaths developed. People learned to use the heaths for economic and cultural purposes. The impact of the heath management on landscape and soils was registered in soil records of barrows, drift sand sequences, and plaggic Anthrosols. Based on pollen diagrams of such records we could reconstruct that heaths were developed and used for cattle grazing before the Bronze Age. During the late Neolithic, the Bronze Age, and Iron Age, people created the barrow landscape on the ancestral heaths. After the Iron Age, people probably continued with cattle grazing on the heaths and plaggic agriculture until the early Middle Ages. Severe forest degradation by the production of charcoal for melting iron during the Iron Age till the 6th–7th century and during the 11th–13th century for the trade of wood resulted in extensive sand drifting, a threat to the valuable heaths. The introduction of the deep, stable economy and heath sods digging in the course of the 18th century resulted in acceleration of the rise of plaggic horizons, severe heath degradation, and again extension of sand drifting. At the end of the 19th century heath lost its economic value due to the introduction of chemical fertilizers. The heaths were transformed into "new" arable fields and forests, and due to deep ploughing most soil archives were destroyed. Since AD 1980, the remaining relicts of the ancestral heaths are preserved and restored in the frame of the programs to improve the regional and national geo-biodiversity. Despite the realization of many heath restoration projects during the last decades, the area of the present heaths is just a fraction of the heath areal in AD 1900.
During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of Twello (central Netherlands) a relati... more During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of
Twello (central Netherlands) a relatively well-preserved
Single Grave Culture burial was found. This offered the rare
opportunity to study this monument by using modern
techniques and to analyse it in its local and wider
archaeological and environmental setting. At fi rst sight, the
burial does not appear to deviate much from ‘the standard’
for the Single Grave Culture in the Netherlands. However,
when all excavation data and specialist analyses are
combined some interesting patterns emerge. Whereas the
Single Grave Culture is generally seen as a tradition that
had strong links with the north and east, the stone axe head
and fl int blade that were deposited in the grave rather point
to a southern origin. Chemical residue analyses and
palynological research indicate that the protruding foot
beaker that was found probably contained a primitive type of
wheat beer or porridge and may have been sealed with
animal fat. Furthermore it is demonstrated that the burial
played an important role in later landscape organisation and
was still perceived as an important location many centuries
after it had been erected.
Plant Ecology, 2006
As a reference for ongoing studies reconstructing past vegetation, climate and environment, polle... more As a reference for ongoing studies reconstructing past vegetation, climate and environment, pollen spectra in tundra peat profiles from Svalbard, were investigated. The base of tundra peat cores collected from Ny Å lesund, Stuphallet, Blomstrand and Isdammen has been 14 C dated to 350 -490 BP, 5710 BP, 4670 BP and 700 -900 BP, respectively. The Stuphallet and Blomstrand (Brøggerhalvøya) peat profiles were composed of a peat developed in a nutrient enriched and wet tundra environment of steep birdcliffs. Pollen concentrations were low, Brassicaceae pollen dominated the whole profile. In contrast, the Ny Å lesund and Isdammen profiles contained high pollen concentrations and suggest a nutrient-poor, dry tundra environment. Pollen of the polar willow, Salix polaris, occurred commonly throughout all four peat profiles. In the relatively high resolution (10 years per peat core sample) analysis of the Ny Å lesund core, starting before or at the beginning of the Little Ice Age (LIA, 16th-mid 19th century), dominance of Saxifraga oppositifolia indicates a cold and dry climate, followed by a decline of Saxifraga oppositifolia and gradual increase of Salix polaris after the LIA, which indicates a moist and milder climate.
Plant Ecology, 2006
The response of tundra plants to enhanced UV-B radiation simulating 15 and 30% ozone depletion wa... more The response of tundra plants to enhanced UV-B radiation simulating 15 and 30% ozone depletion was studied at two high arctic sites (Isdammen and Adventdalen, 78°N, Svalbard).The set-up of the UV-B supplementation systems is described, consisting of large and small UV lamp arrays, installed in 1996 and 2002. After 7 years of exposure to enhanced UV-B radiation, plant cover, density, morphological (leaf fresh and dry weight, leaf thickness, leaf area, reproductive and ecophysiological parameters leaf UV-B absorbance, leaf phenolic content, leaf water content) were not affected by enhanced UV-B radiation. DNA damage in the leaves was not increased with enhanced UV-B in Salix polaris and Cassiope tetragona. DNA damage in Salix polaris leaves was higher than in leaves of C. tetragona. The length of male gametophyte moss plants of Polytrichum hyperboreum was reduced with elevated UV-B as well as the number of Pedicularis hirsuta plants per plot, but the inflorescence length of Bistorta vivipara was not significantly affected. We discuss the possible causes of tolerance of tundra plants to UV-B (absence of response to enhanced UV-B) in terms of methodology (supplementation versus exclusion), ecophysiological adaptations to UV-B and the biogeographical history of polar plants
TMA57, 2017
Ongoing research on the impact of the Avellino eruption on Early Bronze Age migration to the sout... more Ongoing research on the impact of the Avellino eruption on Early Bronze Age migration to the southern basins of Lazio, where the distal Avellino tephra is preserved, aims for a palaeogeographical reconstruction of the Early Bronze Age landscape. This reconstruction pinpoints locations where both the chance of tephra preservation and Early Bronze Age habitation are highest. A suitability map indicates those areas: fluvial levees, lake edges and infilled palaeovalleys. Additionally, initial palaeo-ecological analysis of peat in the Fondi basin shows that tephra deposition did have a local effect on vegetation, but a limited effect on regional vegetation, while the overall human signal in the pollen re-cord is weak. This suggests that the Pontine plain was thinly populated during and directly after the Avellino event. Nevertheless, the suitability map can be used to investigate yet unknown locations for Early Bronze Age stratigraphy.
Groups of burial mounds may be among the most tangible and visible remains of Europe’s prehistori... more Groups of burial mounds may be among the most tangible and visible remains of Europe’s prehistoric past. Yet, not much is known on how “barrow landscapes” came into being . This book deals with that topic, by presenting the results of archaeological research carried out on a group of just two barrows that crown a small hilltop near the Echoput (“echo-well”) in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.
In 2007, archaeologists of the Ancestral Mounds project of Leiden University carried out an excavation of parts of these mounds and their immediate environment. They discovered that these mounds are rare examples of monumental barrows from the later part of the Iron Age. They were probably built at the same time, and their similarities are so conspicuous that one might speak of “twin barrows”.
The research team was able to reconstruct the long-term history of this hilltop. We can follow how the hilltop that is now deep in the forests of the natural reserve of the Kroondomein Het Loo, once was an open place in the landscape. With pragmatism not unlike our own, we see how our prehistoric predecessors carefully managed and maintained the open area for a long time, before it was transformed into a funerary site. The excavation yielded many details on how people built the barrows by cutting and arranging heather sods, and how the mounds were used for burial rituals in the Iron Age.
In the summer of 2013 a large excavation campaign revealed the layout of a late Bandkeramik settl... more In the summer of 2013 a large excavation campaign revealed the layout of a late Bandkeramik settlement on the Cannerberg, just south of the city of Maastricht, near
the Belgium border. The geographical location of the settlements is atypical, since most of the Dutch LBK
settlements are situated on the middle terraces, with the exception of several younger ones on the eastern side of the Meuse. The research was carried out by Archaeological
Research Leiden BV (Archol) in combination with the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University, the National Museum of Antiquities, KF InHeritage and many others.
Based on test trenching, the structure of the settlement was thought to have an open layout. This contrasts with most Dutch LBK settlements such as Elsloo, Stein and Sittard.
In total 3.5 ha were excavated, revealing the outlines of a small Bandkeramik village, encompassing at least 29 house yards. Based on the pottery chronology it is thought
that 4 to 5 house yards were present during each (ceramic) phase. The site has been dated to the Younger and Youngest phases of the Bandkeramik: phase 1d-2a. The house yards cluster and move across the settlement area. The house structures themselves are oriented east to west and consist merely of Modderman Type 2 houses. These are
two prominent features that distinguish this site from other known settlements in the Netherlands and the Graetheide settlement cluster. There seems to be little difference in material culture compared to other sites. Pottery, flint and stone tools typically conform to regional LBK standards. What
was most striking, however, was the enormous amount of flint that was present within three large refuse pits. They resemble the flint blade production workshops from
Verlaine-Petit Paradis and the settlement therefore may have played a comparable important role in social and economic distribution networks.
It is clear that the Cannerberg settlement already holds a special place within the Dutch Bandkeramik. This is not only based on its flint blade industry, but also because of its
striking geographical position, settlement structure and occupation dynamics.
During excavation habitation traces which could be roughly dated to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age were documented.
A number of these locations were subsequently excavated and yielded various yards consisting of house plans and associated outbuildings and pits. The yards could be
dated to the Early Iron Age and first half of the middle Iron Age (ca. 800-400 BC). The Cannerberg is one of the first settlements on the loess soils of Southern Limburg
to yield clear Iron Age houseplans. In addition to the Early Iron Age farmyards a large ditch with a V-shaped cross-section
was found which has been dated to the Late Iron Age. The location of this ditch is remarkable as it cuts off a spit of land protruding from the Cannerberg. A possible
interpretation for this ditch is that we are dealing with a simple type of fortified settlement which are well known from the Late Iron Age.
The excavation yielded a small number of Roman period features among them a partial house plan and several pits and ditches. The features date between AD 50 and 150 and
probably represent a small rural settlement
More recent periods are represented by remains dating to the Dutch War of Independence against Phillip II of Spain (1566-1648) or later. Long elongated ditches
probably relate to one of the sieges of Maastricht. In addition earthworks belonging to a fortification dating to 1632 built by Prince Frederik Hendrik, the sovereign Prince
of Orange were identified on a digital elevation model. During the Second World War the caves in the Cannerberg were used for industrial purpose by the German occupying forces. Remains of allied fire bombs (incendiary cluster bombs) were found scattered over Cannerberg..