D43a

D43a was a dolmen and megalithic burial monument at Emmen in Drenthe, Netherlands. It belonged to the western group of the Funnel Beaker culture and was probably a passage grave. The site lay west of Emmen, south of the surviving Emmen-Schimmeres dolmen (D43), among several other megalithic tombs in the surrounding area.

When it was recorded in 1847, the burial chamber still had three pairs of side stones, an end stone and two capstones. Its chamber was about 3.8 m long. The monument was probably dismantled between 1869 and 1871; some of its stones may have been reused in the restoration of nearby D43. Remains were rediscovered in 1968 and archaeologically investigated in 1984.

The burial contained 37.7 g of cremated human bone, too little to establish the deceased’s age or sex with certainty. Three nearly complete pottery vessels and some sherds were recovered during the dismantling works and handed to the Drents Museum in 1871. The 1984 excavation produced more than 5500 sherds, from which 114 vessels were reconstructed; at least 89 belonged to the Funnel Beaker culture. They were dated by a typological estimate to 3470–3075 BC. A further 3 g of burned animal bone was found, but it could not be determined whether these were tool remains or food offerings.

D43a is one of the hunebedden, the megalithic tombs built in the Netherlands by the western group of the Funnel Beaker culture. Such tombs were built between 3470 and 3250 BC and used until about 2760 BC. Of an estimated 100 original tombs, 54 are preserved, including 52 in Drenthe and two in Groningen. D43a was first mentioned in 1819 by L. Willinge, and a drawing and plan of it were published by Leonhardt Johannes Friedrich Janssen in 1848.

D43a is a dolmen in Emmen, Germany. Wikidata describes it as: dolmen in the Netherlands. A typological estimate: 3500 BCE to 2800 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the German article "Großsteingrab Emmer es", shown in the original language.