Maritime Culture in the Netherlands: accessing the late medieval maritime cultural landscapes of the north‐eastern Zuiderzee

This paper examines the theory and practice of the maritime cultural landscape in general, and projects the theoretical concepts and aspects involved on the highly dynamic late medieval north‐eastern Zuiderzee region in the Netherlands. The cultivation of land and marine erosion (floods and rising sea level) are considered as the main factors that caused the transformation of the physical landscape of this region from peatlands with freshwater basins into a tidal lagoon. As a consequence, multiple settlements drowned, large areas of land submerged, and culture and the landscape gradually became more maritime, giving the research area a cultural identity and dimension.     

The Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition in the Channel Islands: Maritime and Terrestrial Perspectives

This paper investigates the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Channel Islands. It presents a new synthesis of all known evidence from the islands c.5000–4300 bc , including several new excavations as well as find‐spot sites that have not previously been collated. It also summarizes – in English – a large body of contemporary material from north‐west France. The paper presents a new high‐resolution sea‐level model for the region, shedding light on the formation of the Channel Islands from 9000–4000 bc . Through comparison with contemporary sites in mainland France, an argument is made suggesting that incoming migrants from the mainland and the small indigenous population of the islands were both involved in the transition. It is also argued that, as a result of the fact the Channel Islands witnessed a very different trajectory of change from that seen in Britain and Ireland c.5000–3500 bc , this small group of islands has a great deal to tell us about the arrival of the Neolithic more widely.