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Dutch archaeologists have unearthed a 4,000-year-old religious site that local media are already calling the “Dutch Stonehenge.” The site features a burial mound that once served as a solar calendar. The burial hill, which contained the remains of around 60 men, women, and children, had several passages through which sunlight streamed on the longest and shortest days of the year.
“What an impressive archaeological discovery! Archaeologists have found a religious sanctuary dating back 4,000 years right in the industrial zone,” Tiel city authorities reported on their Facebook page. The city added that this is the first time such a site has been found in the Netherlands.
Excavations around the so-called “open-air sanctuary” began in 2017 in a small settlement located approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) southeast of Utrecht. By studying differences in the composition and color of the clay, researchers identified the locations of three burial mounds a few kilometers from the banks of the Waal River.
As reported by the publication ScienceAlert, the diameter of the main mound is approximately 20 meters (65 feet). Its passages align in a row and functioned as a solar calendar. Archaeologists say people used this calendar to mark important dates, including holidays and harvest times. NOS, the Dutch public broadcaster, said the mound resembles Stonehenge — the ancient, mysterious monument in Britain — which shows a similar alignment.
Researchers also discovered two smaller burial mounds. Archaeologists say the three mounds were used as burial sites for roughly 800 years. They made another notable find: a glass bead in one of the graves. Analysis showed the bead originated in Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq. “Four thousand years ago, this bead traveled a distance of about 5,000 kilometers,” said lead researcher Christian van der Linde. “Glass was not produced locally, so the bead was likely an impressive item, since people at that time were not yet familiar with this material,” added Stein Arnoldussen, a professor at the University of Groningen.
Arnoldussen told NOS that the Mesopotamian bead may have circulated for a long time before reaching the area around Tiel, known in Dutch as the Betuwe. He said people at the time already understood barter. The bead could have been in circulation for hundreds of years before it arrived in Tiel, but he emphasized that this is only an assumption.
Video: Excavations at the Dutch Stonehenge
