Abstract

The Dutch wetlands have been the basis of numerous, rich Mesolithic-Neolithic excavations, which have brought significant new insights into the Neolithic transition in the Netherlands. Recent research has demonstrated that the Swifterbant culture communities living in these wetlands practised animal and crop husbandry from ca. 4300 BCE . Yet, the faunal evidence also suggests that the lifeways of this culture, and their successors, continued otherwise fairly unchanged. Hunting and fishing remained a significant way of life. In this talk, I will discuss the contrasting evidence for foraging and farming subsistence from two animal-oriented perspectives: beavers, the hunted animal, and cattle, the managed animal. I will examine how these animals provide different insights into the Neolithisation process in the Netherlands and how these insights can be merged in a multispecies perspective. Through this, this talk will explore why the Dutch wetlands were home to a unique subsistence mode that persisted for over 1500 years and that defies archaeological categorisation.

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