REVIEWED ARTICLE LE E (DE)CONSTRUCTING THE MESOLITHIC | Yannick de Raaff (NL) 54 EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020 REVIEWED ARTICLE Introduction Creating reconstructions of the past has occupied a central position within the archaeological discipline from its early days. Reconstructions are often considered essential for visualizing the past. However, visualisations have the potential to be overly realistic, and thereby to convey a sense of truth that might not be fully justified (Clark, 2010, p.64, 69). This is true for drawings, sketches, computer visualisations, 3D and scale models, but perhaps even more so for architectural life-size models at open-air museums and other types of archaeological parks. To explore the effect that such reconstructions have on our perception of the past, I will use as a case study the life-size reconstructions of Mesolithic huts built in the Netherlands, whose scientific basis is debatable. My goal, however, is not to provide mere criticism. Rather, I would like to show how perceptions of prehistory can take form, and to demonstrate the value of tracing back the origins and sources of such a perception. The hypothesis can be summarised that, as soon as they are built, reconstructions steer our thinking about prehistory, and once an image exists, it can be difficult to alter. Fig 2 (Above). The construction of ‘House Stork’. The basket-like structure with the diagonal crossings ensures strength and sturdiness. Photo by Yannick de Raaff. The Archetypal Concept The Dutch reconstructions of Mesolithic huts are characterised by their oval shape, their relatively large size, the wickerwork that is wrapped around vertical oaken poles, and the flexible hazel or willow branches used to create a central axis (See Figure 2). The construction is given strength in one of two ways: either sturdy branches are planted in between the wickerwork and guided diagonally towards the central axis, or these branches are led to the central axis perpendicularly. Also characteristic is the use of reeds, although various thatching methods have been applied to the structures. Innate to the Dutch huts are also the overhanging smoke hole at the top, the ‘fold’ caused by the central axis and the usual (rather large) entrance in the long side (De Raaff, 2018, pp.3-8) (See Figure 3). The floor is nearly always bare earth. Source 1: Archaeological Site Bergumermeer S-64B The archaeological basis of the reconstructions is derived from the remains of alleged huts that were excavated at the archaeological site Bergumermeer S-64B, in the northern Netherlands (IJzereef, 1999, p.173). This site was excavated in the early seventies. The excavated complex was interpreted as a semi-permanent residential hunter-gatherer camp from the Late Mesolithic (Newell, 1980, p.276). It was found next to the so-called Bergumermeer lake, and yielded numerous finds. Most curiously, the excavators also discovered several horse-shoe shaped orange discolourations. These were interpreted as the remains of five or six more or less contemporaneous dwelling structures (See Figure 4). The excavated encampment attracted the attention of scholars from all over Europe. The huts especially played a significant role in shaping our definition of Mesolithic settlements, as well as the chronology of the Late Mesolithic. The camp was used to hypothesize about demography and sedentism (Newell, 1973, p.409; Niekus, Jelsma and Luinge 2018, pp.948-949). The site’s location next to a water body reverberated in the construction of the camp at Archeon as well as later at Prehistorische Nederzetting Swifterkamp (IJzereef, 1999, pp.173-174) (See Figures 1 and 5). EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020 Fig 3 (Left). ‘House Stork’ in its finished state. The reed turned brown in a matter of weeks. Photo by Yannick de Raaff. Fig 1 (Previous page). The use of mats of reeds, as observed in Senegal, was applied for example to this reconstruction at Prehistorische Nederzetting Swifterkamp. Photo by Yannick de Raaff. 55 REVIEWED ARTICLE Fig 4. Digitized plan of the excavation at Bergumermeer S-64B. The supposed huts are marked by W, NW, SW, NE, SE and E. Figure from Niekus et al. 2018, p.950 modified after Newell (1980: Fig. 3) and Casparie and Bosch (1995: Fig. 1). Fig 5. The reconstructed camp at Archeon as seen from the water. Photo by Hans Doderer. Fig 6. Some of the earliest huts reconstructed at Archeon in the early 1990s. Photo by A. de Haas and L. Wolterbeek. 56 EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020 The interpretation of the site has long been criticised. For many decades, archaeologists were not able to evaluate the proposed conclusions because the data was not fully published, yet it remained one of the textbook Mesolithic excavations (Niekus, Jelsma and Luinge 2018, p.946). The site’s considerable influence was reinforced in the public perception, where by necessity the vagaries and ambiguities of excavations are removed in favour of presenting a solid narrative. This is especially visible in archaeological open-air museums: the huts excavated at Bergumermeer have served as the basis for reconstructions of Mesolithic huts numerous times over the last 30 years. The first reconstructed ‘Bergumermeer hut’ was built in the early 1990s at archaeological theme park Archeon, and four more followed in the years thereafter (IJzereef, 1999, p.173) (See Figure 6). REVIEWED ARTICLE Fig 7. The hut in Poland under construction. Photo from Osipowicz et al. 2015. The design was quickly replicated in other archaeological parks across the country; reconstructions were built at Prehistorische Nederzetting Swifterkamp (four), School in Bos Buitencentrum Wilhelminaoord (two), Hunebedcentrum Borger (one), Erve Eme (one), Prehistory Alive Worlwide (one), and during the Living Experiment at Horsterwold (two) (Olthof and Pomstra, 2006a; 2006b). The design also crossed the national borders – an almost identical structure was built on the premises of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland (See Figure 7). Meanwhile, the call for a thorough restudy of the material excavated at Bergumermeer became louder, so that the scientific value of the site could be firmly established. Reexamination by Niekus, Jelsma and Luinge, (2018) established that Bergumermeer was an extensive palimpsest, with overlapping archaeological remains from the Late Paleolithic, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic/ Bronze Age. The interpretation of the horseshoe shaped patterns was rejected – there was no obvious relation between the features and the flint distribution. In other words, Mesolithic people certainly inhabited this area, but Bergumermeer was at no point the aggregation camp that it was imagined to be. The archaeological evidence is thus insufficient to support the built reconstructions. Source 2: the Living Experiment in Flevoland in 1976 Inspiration for the reconstructions was also found in other places, most notably the Living Experiment that took place in 1976 on a parcel of newly reclaimed land in the Flevopolder (Province of Flevoland). A group of people attempted to live under Neolithic (Swifterbant) circumstances. Their objective was to find out whether it is possible for a modernday, Western person to live under the same conditions as their early human predecessors, by living “at a hunting-gathering-gardening subsistence level” (Horreüs de Haas, 1978, p.2). The participants assumed that the dwellings they built must have resembled the temporary dwellings of fishermen and hunters in a swampy landscape. The participants were well aware that Neolithic farmers lived in larger farmsteads, but they accepted this apparent historical inaccuracy because they assumed that it was likely that temporary dwellings were still built (Horreüs de Haas and Horreüs de Haas, 1982, p.70) (See Figure 8). The single condition that the builders had to abide by was that their huts were to be built with replicated Stone Age tools and with materials found in the immediate vicinity of the camp (Horreüs de Haas, 1978, p.3). The choice of materials was thus dictated by their availability in an artificial, man-made stretch of land. During the experiment, huts of various shapes and sizes were built, though the participants quickly observed that it was the light, round and oval huts with ‘braided’ domes that could defy bad weather and wind best (Horreüs de Haas and Horreüs de Haas, 1982, p.144). The Living Experiment of 1976 certainly was not an archaeological experiment. Nonetheless, its influence on the perception of prehistory within the Netherlands is notable. It is interesting to note how the huts, despite never having been labelled as Mesolithic by the participants, were soon identified as being representative of the Mesolithic because of their temporary nature. Fig 8. Photo of hut F under construction. Photo from Horreüs de Haas and Horreüs de Haas 1982, p.77. The huts built during the Living Experiment had been inspired by shelters built some 30 years earlier. For some time during the Second World War (1944-1945) Roeland and Hans Horreüs de Haas had gone into hiding in a farm in the province of Friesland. To avoid scaring off birds while watching them they took shelter in a domed hut that they made with branches of willow covered with reeds (Horreüs de Haas, 2004, p.84). EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020 57 REVIEWED ARTICLE Fig 9. Reconstruction drawing of the camp at Bergumermeer. Drawing by B. Brobbers, from Bloemers et al. 1981, p.34. Source 3: Verleden Land (1981) Source 4: Oerlinghausen and BAI The excavation of Bergumermeer was first introduced to a large audience through the book Verleden Land: Archeologische Opgravingen in Nederland (Bloemers, Louwe Kooijmans and Sarfatij, 1981). This popular-scientific book described the 40 most influential excavations in the country to inform a general audience about life in the past and the work of archaeologists. It was full of reconstruction drawings, which were meant to visualize the abstract archaeological data. As such, it also contained a drawing of Bergumermeer (See Figure 9). Somewhat hidden in the background, three round, reedcovered huts can be observed. They are described as “likely made of braided reed mats, over a skeleton of bent twigs that were placed in a circle and bound together at the top” (Bloemers, Louwe Kooijmans and Sarfatij, 1981, p.34; author’s translation). The accompanying text refers to ethnographically comparable huts of indigenous North Americans, but they are surprisingly analogous to the huts of the Living Experiment. Besides the huts of the Living Experiment, the builders of the first huts at Archeon had gathered information about two more models: two reconstructions from Archäologisches Freilichtmuseum Oerlinghausen (DE) (See Figure 10) and one built by students from the Biologisch-Archeologisch Instituut (BAI). The basis of the Oerlinghausen reconstructions is a controversial excavation from the early 1930s at Retlager Quellen. These reconstructions are far smaller than the huts at Archeon, yet the branches that would form the arches were in a similar way pushed into the soil. Over time, various materials have been used to cover the skeleton, such as hides, birch bark and common couch (Agropyrum repens). Fig 10. Reconstructed hut in the Archäologisches Freilichtmuseum Oerlinghausen (DE), based on the excavations at the Retlager Quellen. This hut is covered with birch bark. Photo by Roeland Paardekooper. The hut that was reconstructed by students from the BAI was based on the orange traces observed at Bergumermeer, and constructed simultaneously with the excavation. It consisted of a skeleton made with flexible branches, where first the arches across the length were created, and then the arches across the width were put into place. The skeleton was covered with green reeds. After the students experimented with making reed mats, they switched to tying the reeds straight onto the skeleton because this was faster. 58 It is significant that these reconstructions at Oerlinghausen and Bergumermeer make use of horizontal branches that create intersections of 90 degrees, whereas the archetypal reconstructions – especially the later ones – make use of diagonal crossings to create triangles. This essential difference shows that these examples, despite being labelled as sources of inspiration, had only limited influence on the development of the archetypal model. EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020 REVIEWED ARTICLE Source 5: Ethnography, Logic and Experience Over the years, as similar huts were built at other parks, the design was slowly ‘improved’ upon – through ethnography, logic and experience, the builders created sturdier, more durable huts. As an example, some inspiration was taken from modern-day huts from Senegal. There reeds were not attached to the skeleton of a hut directly in bundles but rather tied into mats, and then used to cover huts. The same technique was then applied to several reconstructed Mesolithic huts in the Netherlands (See Figure 1). It means that the huts are to a certain extent Africanised. be noted however, that the hut was no 1:1 reconstruction based on an archaeological plan (See Figure 12). Instead, the concept of misaligning the walls to create a perpendicular entrance was applied to the standard concept as first built at Archeon. The above examples show how the builders of Mesolithic hut reconstructions have cautiously been playing with new ideas, techniques and materials, without wavering from the general concept. In a similar example, builders of a reconstruction at Swifterkamp took inspiration from a plan drawn up by Alfred Rust of his excavation at Pinneberg, northern Germany. The excavated remains pointed to a hut with a distinct pear-like shape. Rather than having an entrance in line with the direction of the walls, this hut had an entrance that stood perpendicular to it, created by the purposeful misalignment of two walls (Jelinek, 1974, pp.226-227) (See Figure 11). It was hypothesized by the constructors that this design would better protect anyone inside the hut from raging winds outside. It must Fig 11. The plan of the remains of a Mesolithic hut excavated by Alfred Rust at Pinneberg was used to create a variation of the general concept at Prehistorische Nederzetting Swifterkamp. Drawing from Jelinek 1974, p.226. Fig 12. The reconstructed hut at Swifterkamp, with elements of the plan of Pinneberg merged into the general Bergumermeer-type reconstruction. Photo by Yannick de Raaff. EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020 59 REVIEWED ARTICLE An Image Created – Problematic? The sources on which the archetypal Dutch Mesolithic hut reconstructions are based, are thus divergent. On the one hand, the orange discolorations attested at Bergumermeer (1971-1974) served as the basic plan, though these later turned out to be wrongly interpreted as huts (Niekus, Jelsma and Luinge 2018). On the other hand, the reconstructions are heavily based, in construction technique and use of material, on the creative abilities of the participants of the Living Experiments from 1976 and the bird-watching hut built in 1945. Both were corroborated by illustrations from the book Verleden Land (Bloemers, Louwe Kooijmans and Sarfatij, 1981). Meanwhile, the builders ‘improved’ on the design through accumulated logic and experience so as to improve the strength and durability of the huts – building reconstructions is costly so in theme parks and open-air museums they are built to last (1990-2020). I am not arguing that huts like these did not exist at all in the Mesolithic – the evidence that archaeologists find is so marginal that brave decisions need to be made in visualizing the superstructure at open-air museums. The above account does, however, show how a perception of prehistory is created, improved upon, experimented with, and how it can persist over such a long period of time. Reynolds noted that, especially reconstructions built for the public are the “explanation of an excavation, the interpretations frozen at a moment of time allowing for little or no development” (Reynolds, 2006, p.58). Particularly interesting is how IJzereef noted that “building at Archeon will never be finished, because the story of the past will never be finished” (IJzereef, 1999, p.179). Yet our image of the Mesolithic period, as presented at archaeological theme parks and open-air museums saw only limited evolution, as evidenced by the reconstructions of the huts, which were built time and again after the same prototype. Now that the perception of the Bergumermeer reconstructions has been deconstructed, we have a baseline from where we can continue building the story of the past. - Bibliography Bloemers, J.H.F., Louwe Kooijmans, L.P. and Sarfatij, H., 1981. Verleden Land: Archeologische Opgravingen in Nederland. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff. Clark, J.T., 2010. The Fallacy of Reconstruction. In: M. Forte, ed. 2010. Cyber-Archaeology, BAR International Series 2177. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp.63-74. Horreüs de Haas, R., 1978. Living a Stone Age Life: Report of a Creative Game. Bilthoven. Horreüs de Haas, J. and Horreüs de Haas, H., 1982. Als in het Stenen Tijdperk: Verslag van het Spel in de Flevopolder. Den Haag: Omniboek. Horreüs de Haas, R., 2004. Onderduiker in het Hart van Friesland. September 1944 – April 1945. Zwolle: Erven Horreüs de Haas. IJzereef, G.E., 1999. The Reconstruction of Sites in the Archaeological Theme Park ARCHEON in The Netherlands. In: P.G. Stone and P.G. Planel, eds. 1999. The Constructed Past: Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public. 3rd ed., One World Archaeology, 36. London, New York: Routledge. pp.172-180. Jelinek, J., 1974. De Grote Encyclopedie van de Mens in de Oertijd. Translated from Czech by G.P. Bühr. Haarlem: Holland. Newell, R.R., 1980. Mesolithic Dwelling Structures: Fact and Fantasy. In: Veröffentlichungen des Museums für Ur-und Frühgeschichte Potsdam. 14/15. pp.235-284. Niekus, M.J.L.Th., J. Jelsma and Luinge, C., 2018. Bergumermeer S-64B (the Netherlands) Revisited: Some Critical Remarks on the Interpretation of an Extensive Late Mesolithic Site Complex with Alleged Dwelling Structures. Journal of Archaeological Science, 18, pp.946-959. Olthof, D. and Pomstra, D., 2006a. Tamme Jagers en Wild Voedsel. Bulletin voor Archeologische Experimenten en Educatie, 1, pp.3-6. Olthof, D. and Pomstra, D., 2006b. Jager-verzamelaars in de Flevopolder, Verslag van een Mesolithisch Leefproject, Westerheem, 55(6), pp.306-311. Raaff, de Y.P., 2018. House Stork. De Reconstructie van een Mesolithische Hut. Paleo-aktueel, 29, pp.1-10. Reynolds, P.J., 2006. The Scientific Basis for the Reconstruction of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Houses. EuroREA, 3, pp.58-68. Full version available online EXARC.net/journal 60 EXARC JOURNAL Digest | 2020