Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Burial mount Grootebroek
DatedEst. 3000–1000 BCE
Photo Dqfn13 · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The burial mound at Grootebroek is a Bronze Age barrow, dated to about 1600 BC to about 800 BC, on the Overstort just south of the ribbon settlement of Grootebroek, in the municipality of Stede Broec, North Holland, the Netherlands. It is a national monument (rijksmonument).
A statue of a cheetah stands on its summit.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Burial mount Grootebroek
To mark the mound for the public, a statue of a cheetah stands on the top; it is called Cheeta in volle ren.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)CC BY-SA 4.0
Two ring ditches once surrounded the mound; their function is not clear. They had diameters of 18 and 29 metres. To mark the mound for the public, a statue of a cheetah stands on the top; it is called Cheeta in volle ren.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound was designated a rijksmonument on 25 November 1975 (rijksmonument number 45447). The mound and a strip of 10 metres around it are protected as a so-called archaeological rijksmonument. In 2014, on the initiative of Oud Stede Broec, an information board was placed at this burial monument and at others, including the other burial mounds in the municipality and the remains of a mill.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Dutch): Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)CC BY-SA 4.0
Round barrows are found across the Low Countries and France. They are hemispherical mounds raised over a central burial, which may be an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel. Barrows were often reused, and later graves were sometimes cut into the mound long after the first burial.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Low Countries and French barrows
Round barrows are found across the Low Countries and France. Many were raised in the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The Bell Beaker phenomenon of the late third millennium BCE brought a new burial rite to western Europe: individual burials, often under a tumulus and with weapons, in contrast to the collective, weaponless burials of the earlier Neolithic. The Dutch hunebedden, the megalithic tombs of the north, belong to the earlier tradition and are described in their own article.
Round barrows are hemispherical mounds raised over a central burial, which may be an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel. Barrows were often reused: later graves were cut into the mound, sometimes long after the first burial, and many attract satellite burials. In France and Belgium, tumuli of the Hallstatt period belong to the early Iron Age, from about 800 BCE; from phase B of the Hallstatt sequence, tumulus burial becomes common and cremation predominates.
Dating relies on pottery and metalwork, and on radiocarbon dating where a mound has been dug. Many have been ploughed down, so the Atlas map reflects where mounds survived and were recorded as much as where they were built.
When visiting, look for the surrounding ditch or kerb, and for a later disturbance at the centre where a later grave or an old digging has cut the mound.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Round barrow, Wikipedia: Bell Beaker culture, Wikipedia: Hallstatt culture, Wikipedia: Hunebed · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1600 BCE
De in Grootebroek gelegen grafheuvel aan de Overstort is een grafheuvel uit de Bronstijd (circa 1600 v. Chr. tot circa 800 v. Chr.).
Source - 1975
De heuvel werd op 25 november 1975 aangewezen als rijksmonument.
Source - 2014
In 2014 werd op initiatief van Oud Stede Broec een informatiebord bij onder andere dit grafmonument geplaatst.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
2 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3000–1000 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Kingdom of the Netherlands; this site has not been dated itself. The oldest Dutch tumuli (grafheuvels) near Apeldoorn were built about 5,000 years ago and concentrations of Bronze Age tumuli lie on the Veluwe.Source for this date
Where it stands
Kingdom of the Netherlands
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 52°41′26″ N, 5°13′38″ EFor a GPS or map app: 52.69053, 5.22732
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Terrein waarin 6 grafheuvels3000–1000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Terrein waarin grafheuvel #461733000–1000 BCE
Cist of Rijs- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Terrein waarin grafheuvel #456543000–1000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Grafheuvel #455473000–1000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Grafheuvel #455483000–1000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Terrein waarin twee grafheuvels3000–1000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Terrein met zes a zeven grafheuvels, overblijfselen van bewoning, urnenveld, resten van een nederzetting en terrein waarin een rechthoekige omwalling3000–1000 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q17453732wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Terrein waarin 6 grafheuvels6.1 km NW
- Terrein waarin grafheuvel #461736.5 km NW
- Cist of Rijs25 km NE
- Terrein waarin grafheuvel #4565445 km S
- Grafheuvel #4554749 km S
- Grafheuvel #4554849 km S
- Terrein waarin twee grafheuvels49 km S
- Terrein met zes a zeven grafheuvels, overblijfselen van bewoning, urnenveld, resten van een nederzetting en terrein waarin een rechthoekige omwalling49 km S
- Terrein waarin grafheuvel #4563549 km S
- Tien grafheuvels met 10 meterzone49 km S
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Grafheuvel (Grootebroek)" (Dutch), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors