News from the north: A late Middle Palaeolithic site rich in handaxes on the Drenthe–Frisian till plateau near Assen, the Netherlands; first results of a trial excavation

Abstract

The first Middle Palaeolithic artefacts to turn up in situ in boulder sand (erosional residue of glacial till) were found in 2011. The open-air site is located on the Saalian till plateau in the northern Netherlands, not far from the city of Assen, the capital of the province of Drenthe. The finds from a trial excavation comprise flakes, blades, cores and retouched tools. The latter category consists predominantly of handaxes, but a few side-scrapers and backed knives are also present. Apart from erratic Baltic flint, of which most artefacts are made, raw materials include quartzitic sandstone, quartzite and, remarkably, hälleflinta (‘rock-flint’). The assemblage is exceptional because of the many handaxes that dominate the tool spectrum, leading the authors to suggest that butchering activities played a major role in the formation of the assemblage. One of the reasons for Neanderthals to frequent this location, which is situated near a stream valley close to the confluence with a small tributary, might be the presence of relatively good-quality flint nodules and fairly large slabs of hälleflinta. The site is one of the northernmost Middle Palaeolithic occurrences in the Netherlands – in Europe as well – and obviously postdates the Saalian glaciation (MIS 6). ‘Assen’ most likely dates to MIS 3 or MIS 5a/5c of the Weichselian. The presence of many relatively small (sub)cordiform and (sub)triangular handaxes indicates a cultural affiliation with the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition, Type A. The site is situated near the northern limit of the occupation range of Middle Palaeolithic hominins, and the lithic assemblage is comparable to that from several other sites in the northern part of the North European Plain.