The farmers and the Ice Age

Around 5300 BC, the first farmers settled in the southern Netherlands. They brought with them knowledge of farming, livestock keeping, and building wooden farmhouses. These innovations slowly spread to the Maasmond region, where locals adapted their way of life. Though they still hunted and fished, they also began to grow crops and raise animals.

During the Neolithic and Bronze Age, they built farmhouses on river dunes and along creeks. They cleared trees to plant fields, kept sheep and goats for wool and milk, and cultivated wheat and barley, which they ground into flour using stones.In the Iron Age, parts of the wetlands dried up, opening new farmland. Farmers built wooden homes with woven walls and reed roofs on high ground. These houses housed both people and animals under one roof.

They kept cows, pigs, sheep, and goats, grew barley and flax, and used wooden tools, including basic plows. They extracted salt from seawater, trading it for goods like metal and amber.

To stay in touch with other communities, they built paths through the marshes. For longer distances, they traveled by boat. In Terbregge, near the Rotte river, archaeologists discovered a nine-meter-long canoe carved from an oak tree.