Early History

The Netherlands have been inhabited since the last ice age; the oldest artifacts that have been found are from the Hoogeveen interstadial of the Saalian glaciation. During the last ice age, the Netherlands had a tundra climate with scarce vegetation. The first inhabitants survived as hunter-gatherers. After the end of the ice age, the area was inhabited by various palaeolithic groups. One group made canoes (Pesse around 7900 BC), around 8000 BC a Mesolithic tribe resided near Bergumermeer (Friesland).

Agriculture arrived in the Netherlands somewhere around 5000 BC, by the Linear Pottery culture (probably Central European farmers) but was only practised on the loess plateau in the very south (Southern Limburg). Their knowledge was not used to build farms in the rest of the Netherlands owing to a lack of animal domestication and proper tools.

Autochtoneous hunter-gatherers of the Swifterbant culture are attested from 5600 BC onwards. They had strong ties to rivers and open water and are genetically related to the South Scandinavian Ertebølle culture (5300-4000 BC). To the west, the same tribes might have built hunting camps to hunt winter game, such as seals. There is even some evidence of small settlements in the west. These people made the switch to animal husbandry between 4800-4500 BC. They are thought to have developed an agricultural society in an indigenous development as early as 4300-4000 BC, that featured the introduction of small proportions of grains into a traditional broad-spectrum economy. The culture developed into the Westgroup of the farming Funnelbeaker culture, that inhabited Northern Netherlands and Northern Germany to the Elbe river. In this period the first notable remains of Dutch prehistory were erected: the dolmens, large stone grave monuments. They are found in the province of Drenthe, and were probably built between 4100 and 3200 BC. To the west the Vlaardingen culture (around 2600 BC), an apparently more primitive culture of hunter-gatherers survived well into the Neolithicum.

The region was the possible location of origin of the extremely expansive Bell Beaker culture. Around 2950 BC the Netherlands witnessed the transition of Funnelbeaker farming culture to Corded Ware pastoralist culture. This change has been proposed to be a quick, smooth and internal change of culture and religion that occurred during two generations, probably inspired from developments in Eastern Germany, however without the implication of new immigrations. This new culture evolved into the influential Bell Beaker culture. As derived from the western extremity of the Corded Ware culture, otherwise marginal groups took advantage of their contacts by sea and rivers and started a diaspora of North West European culture from Ireland to the Carpatian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and following the Rhone valley until Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy. The first evidence of the use of a wheel dates from this period, about 2400 BC. This culture also experimented with copper working, of which some evidence (stone anvils, copper knives, a copper spearhead) was found on the Veluwe. Each copper finding shows that there was trade with other "countries", as natural copper cannot be found in the Dutch soil.

The Bronze age probably started somewhere around 2000 BC. The bronze tools in the grave of "The smith of Wageningen" illustrated their quest for knowledge. After this finding, more Bronze Age findings appear, such as Epe, Drouwen, etc. The many findings of rare (and therefore valuable) objects such as tin beads on a necklace in Drenthe suggest Drenthe as a trade centre of the Netherlands in the Bronze Age.

The stock of broken bronze objects, meant to recycle (Voorschoten) tells us something about the value of bronze in the Bronze Age, which lasted until about 800 BC. Typology of Dutch Bronze Age axes Typical Bronze Age objects are: knives, swords, axes, fibuale, bracelets, etc. Most Bronze Age objects were found in Drenthe. One item shows that merchants travelled far: large bronze situalae (buckets) were manufactured somewhere in eastern France or in Switzerland, for mixing wine with water (a Roman/Greek custom).

The Iron Age brought fortune to the Netherlands, because iron ore was found in the North ("moeras ijzererts") as well as in the centre (natural "balls" with iron in them, at the Veluwe) as well as in the South (red iron ore near the rivers in Brabant). The smiths could thus travel from small settlement to settlement with bronze and iron, fabricating tools on-demand such as axes, knives, pins, arrowheads, swords, etc. There is even evidence of the use of "damast-forging"; an advanced way to forge metal (swords) with the advantage of flexible iron with the strength of steel.

The wealth of the Netherlands in the Iron Age is seen at the "King's grave in Oss" (about 500 BC), where a king was buried with some extraordinary objects, including an iron sword with an inlay of gold and coral. He was buried in the largest grave mound of Western Europe, which was 52 m wide.