D53

Großsteingrab Havelte 1, also called Havelteberg, is a megalithic passage grave belonging to the western group of the Funnel Beaker culture. It lies north of Havelte in the province of Drenthe, Netherlands, on the Hunebeddenweg. The site carries the Van-Giffen number D53 and was excavated in 1918 under Albert Egges van Giffen.

The grave is aligned east-northeast to west-southwest. Its chamber measures 18,9 m long and 4,4 m wide, making it the Dutch passage grave with the second-largest chamber, after Großsteingrab Borger (D27). Ten enclosure stones survive, and all nine capstones remain in place. Its western end has three closing stones, a feature unique among the surviving Dutch hunebedden.

The chamber contained cremated remains from five people: a young person of unstated sex aged between 10 and 20 years, two men aged between 20 and 40 years, a person who was either a woman or a young person of unstated sex, and a possible woman aged between 30 and 50 years. Pottery from 665 vessels dated the burial to 3300–2760 v. Chr. Finds also included three flint axes, an arrowhead, a hammer axe, three jet beads, an amber bead, and small quantities of burned animal bones.

During the Second World War, the passage grave’s stones were buried and an airfield was built over the site, which was bombed in 1944 and 1945. The monument was afterward reconstructed at its original location using detailed drawings from the 1918 excavation. It was restored in 1991 and has been a Rijksmonument since 1997. In 2017, it was recorded with other surviving Dutch hunebedden in a 3D atlas using photogrammetry.

D53 is a dolmen in Westerveld, 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 Havelte 1", shown in the original language.