Abstract
Abstract. The medieval city of Vlaardingen (the Netherlands) was strategically located on the confluence of three rivers, the Maas, the Merwede, and the Vlaarding. A church of the early 8th century AD was already located here. In a short period of time, Vlaardingen developed in the 11th century AD into an international trading place and into one of the most important places in the former county of Holland. Starting from the 11th century AD, the river Maas repeatedly threatened to flood the settlement. The flood dynamics were registered in Fluvisol archives and were recognised in a multidisciplinary sedimentary analysis of these archives. To secure the future of these vulnerable soil archives an extensive interdisciplinary research effort (76 mechanical drill holes, grain size analysis (GSA), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), archaeological remains, soil analysis, dating methods, micromorphology, and microfauna) started in 2011 to gain knowledge on the sedimentological and pedological subsurface of the settlement mound as well as on the well-preserved nature of the archaeological evidence. Pedogenic features are recorded with soil description, micromorphological, and geochemical (XRF – X-ray fluorescence) analysis. The soil sequence of 5 m thickness exhibits a complex mix of "natural" as well as "anthropogenic" layering and initial soil formation that enables us to make a distinction between relatively stable periods and periods with active sedimentation. In this paper the results of this interdisciplinary project are demonstrated in a number of cross-sections with interrelated geological, pedological, and archaeological stratification. A distinction between natural and anthropogenic layering is made on the basis of the occurrence of the chemical elements phosphor and potassium. A series of four stratigraphic and sedimentary units record the period before and after the flooding disaster. Given the many archaeological remnants and features present in the lower units, in geological terms it is assumed that the medieval landscape was submerged while it was inhabited in the 12th century AD. In reaction to a final submersion phase in the late 12th century AD, the inhabitants started to raise the surface of the settlement. Within archaeological terms the boundary between natural and anthropogenic layers is stratigraphically lower, so that in the interpretation of archaeologists, the living ground was dry during the 12th and the 13th centuries AD. In this discussion, the geological interpretation will be compared with alternative archaeological scenarios.
Highlights
Since the fifties of the last century, archaeological excavations in the city centre of Vlaardingen started to change the view on Vlaardingen’s history first adopted by 17th- and 18th-century historians that the old medieval city was flooded by the river Maas (Fig. 1; De Ridder, 2002)
Based on previous research a number of fluvial channels are assumed to date from the Iron Age, Roman period, and Middle Ages spanning a period of almost 2000 years of dynamic landscape and soil development (De Ridder and van Loon, 2007; Kluiving and Vorenhout, 2010, 2011)
– The medieval city centre of Vlaardingen is situated on top of an old river inversion landscape that provided opportunities for settlement
Summary
Since the fifties of the last century, archaeological excavations in the city centre of Vlaardingen started to change the view on Vlaardingen’s history first adopted by 17th- and 18th-century historians that the old medieval city was flooded by the river Maas (Fig. 1; De Ridder, 2002). Based on previous research a number of fluvial channels are assumed to date from the Iron Age, Roman period, and Middle Ages spanning a period of almost 2000 years of dynamic landscape and soil development (De Ridder and van Loon, 2007; Kluiving and Vorenhout, 2010, 2011). It is still unknown what the exact location, age of initiation, and cessation of river gullies was. That surface is lowered locally to 2 m −NAP (Vos and Eijskoot, 2009), the surface may be higher above old gully complexes that have become inversion ridges
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