Interdisciplinarity Between Humanities and Science and Science
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& Hermans (eds) & Hermans Kootker Kluiving, INTERDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN HUMANITIES INTERDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN HUMANITIES AND SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES BETWEEN INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND SCIENCE Henk Kars was appointed as first Chair of Archaeometry in The Netherlands in 1994. From 2002 he was full time professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, interim Director of CLUE, and founder and Managing Director of the Institute for Geo- and Bioarchaeology. This festschrift volume incorporates original publications in the field straddling the Sciences and Humanities produced by various former PhD-students, post-docs and colleagues. Landscape archaeology is described in the first cultural landscapes of Europe as a mysterious outcome, while the historical record of surface water flow of the central Netherlands is reviewed. The south-western Netherlands are historically analysed since military inundations during the Eighty Year’s War. The palaeolandscapes of the eastern Netherlands are reconstructed to locate the origins of the river Linge. The long time scale is considered in a 220.000 year overview of landscape development and habitation history in Flevoland. Bioarchaeology is represented in a review of the current state of isotope research in The Netherlands and a correlation between bio- and geochemistry meets an analysis of organic residues in copper corrosion products. Archaeometry reveals the colour of Dutch archaeological textures. The relevance of a quartzite Neolithic axe found near to Huizen, The Netherlands is described. INTERDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN CLUES is an international scientific series covering research in the field of culture, history and heritage which have been written by, or were performed under the supervision of members of the research HUMANITIES AND SCIENCE institute CLUE+. Sidestone A FESTSCHRIFT IN HONOUR OF PROF. DR. HENK KARS editors ISBNSidestone 978-90-8890-403-5 Press Sjoerd Kluiving, Lisette Kootker ISBN: 978-90-8890-403-5 & Rita Hermans VOLUME 2 9 789088 904035 S S INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN CULTURE, HISTORY AND HERITAGE INTERDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN HUMANITIES AND SCIENCE Sidestone Press INTERDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN HUMANITIES AND SCIENCE A FESTSCHRIFT IN HONOUR OF PROF. DR. HENK KARS editors Sjoerd Kluiving, Lisette Kootker & Rita Hermans © 2017 Individual authors Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press Photographs cover: • Photo dental element: Lisette M. Kootker • Photo ball of wool: Vincent van Vilsteren • Digital Elevation Model image by LIDAR: Jan G.M. Verhagen • Photo quartzite: Marco Langbroek • Photo Palaeolithic hand stencils: Public domain, French Ministry of Culture • Photo ‘Archaeologists and senior field technicians take the course Soil Science and Geology for archaeologists’: Sjoerd J. Kluiving • Photo coring campaign in Schokland: Hege Hollund • Photo trial trench at Poonhaven: Adriaan de Kraker ISBN 978-90-8890-403-5 (softcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-404-2 (hardcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-405-9 (PDF e-book) + RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE, COGNITION, HISTORY AND HERITAGE IGBA Institute for Geo- and Bioarchaeology Contents Preface 7 Kerstin Lidén & Matthew J. Collins Interdisciplinary collaboration between the Humanities and Sciences. 11 Fifteen years of Geo- and Bioarchaeology teaching and research at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Sjoerd J. Kluiving, Lisette M. Kootker & Rita A.E. Hermans The first cultural landscapes of Europe: A true enigma 25 Jan C.A. Kolen & Barbara Oosterwijk The Wet Heart of the Netherlands 37 Guus J. Borger & Sjoerd J. Kluiving Bones, teeth and invisible tracers. The current state of human 55 bioarchaeological isotope geochemical research in The Netherlands Lisette M. Kootker & Gareth R. Davies On the ‘Quartzite Palaeolithic’ of the Naarder Eng (Huizen, 75 the Netherlands). Relevance of a quartzite Neolithic axe find Marco Langbroek Flooded, flattened and rebuilt archaeological sites. The case of 87 strategic inundations during the Eighty Year’s War and how the archaeology developed after reclamation of the landscape Adriaan M.J. de Kraker Many shades of brown. The condition and colour of Dutch 99 archaeological textiles from dryland sandy soils, bogs, and the sea Ineke Joosten & Maarten R. van Bommel Carbon and nitrogen isotopic variation in bone collagen within the 113 human skeleton Els Dauven, Caroline Montrieux, Lauren O’Boyle, Peter Ditchfield & A. Mark Pollard Landscape and hominin habitation history of Flevoland (central 139 Netherlands) Don F.A.M. van den Biggelaar, Sjoerd J. Kluiving, Ronald T. van Balen & Cees Kasse Reconstructing palaeolandscapes in the eastern Rhine-Meuse delta 163 (The Netherlands). Finding the starting point of the Linge channel? Jan G.M. Verhagen, Ferdinand van Hemmen, John R. Mulder & Sjoerd J. Kluiving Where bio- and geochemistry meet. Organic residues in copper 177 corrosion products? Kristine R. Merriman, Peter Ditchfield, Dana Goodburn-Brown & A. Mark Pollard Preface Kerstin Lidén1 & Matthew J. Collins2,3 1 Stockholm University, Department of Archaeology and Classical studies, Wallenberglaboratoriet, Lilla Frescativägen 7, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden 2 University of York, BioArCh, Environment Building, Wentworth Way, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom 3 A member of the former Institute for Geo- and Bioarchaeology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam This festschrift for Professor Dr Henk Kars highlights Henk’s great interdisciplinary drive and vision which has characterised his career and the work he inspired in his division within the Vrije Universiteit (VU). The papers delivered at a packed meeting in a former Church, high in a tower in the VU, included contributions from the two of us, which we in the lieu of formal papers, are recognised in this preface. It was a brave move for Henk to establish an Institute of Geo and Bioarchaeology in Amsterdam, and the publication series which supported this. The group, which to my great regret the VU decided to close, performed remarkable feats on a shoestring budget, not least of which are the range and quality of the undergraduates and graduate students that they trained. Henk has influenced two generations of researchers, in areas so broad they are beyond the limit of comprehension. Further, International Symposium of Biomolecular Sciences (ISBA) started by Henk has taken over from a rival Ancient DNA series to become the meeting place for Biomolecular Scientists, although it had no such intention when Henk first launched it at the VU in 2004. Henk frankly decided it would be useful to hold a meeting highlighting the developments of biomolecular archaeology as a means of attracting Dutch students to the courses held by the VU. Although there were very few Dutch voices at the meeting, researchers flooded in from all over Europe, and a symposium series was born, to be held next by Kerstin Liden in Stockholm in 2006. At the Stockholm meeting hearing so many researchers discuss new ideas on lactase persistence and dairying, the EU project LeCHE was born. In 2008 we brought the meeting to York, then Copenhagen in 2010, Beijing in 2012, Basel in 2014, and we meet again for the seventh ISBA in Oxford this year, 2016. He and his students, Miranda Jans and Hege Hollund have made inexorable progress in understanding the survival of bone in the archaeological record, and as he moves on to new directions, he leaves a field in rude health and at a period in which it is growing more rapidly and extending its tendrils ever further into the discipline of archaeology. Much as Henk envisaged as he moved from ROB to the VU, archaeology is becoming a truly interdisciplinary area of research, and is more vital, relevant and engrossing for that. lidén & collins 7 Matthew Collins ‘Bone corrosion’ these two words were my introduction to Henk Kars. Angela Gearney, who was a then postdoctoral researcher working with me had been approached to add more of an archaeological focus to an EU project that Henk had devised building on corrosion of bronze artefacts. It was my first introduction to Henk (which also means Eva) and to the complexities of EU funding and EU grant management. I thank Henk for both. The bone ‘corrosion’ or bone diagenesis project that Henk initiated and that we gratefully rode the coattails was great fun, and sucked me into a research project from which I have never been able to fully wrest my interest. Henk was a superb manager, he knew how to reach consensus, how to drive a project forward, and how to deliver a project on time. Although I am not so about the latter bit – which seemed to rely a little too much on the coordinator doing all the work. In my view the project was responsible for launching my research career. Furthermore, Henk is solely responsible for me becoming involved in large European research projects, and it is entirely appropriate that I am typing this on the Eurostar on route to a meeting with our desk officer ahead of the start of an EU project. What is more really we discovered something! I was very sceptical that we would find anything, so many sites, too many variables, but with careful work from them team we began to piece together a pattern of survival which seemed to make sense. With Miranda Jans, carefully documenting histological changes in bones, Colin, managing the endless mercury porosimetry data and Christina, putting it all together, we could identify three diagenetic trajectories, and these identified more than 60% of the variance we measured. What is more they made sense. Broadly speaking, one (time) attacked the collagen, another (soil chemistry) attacked the bone and the third (the gut flora) attacked Trojan like by getting via the blood vessels into the bone, itself. More significantly in cases which broke this rule, we were alive to the exception and wanted to know why. Which of us on the team can forget the still unexplained case of Apigliano, a small deserted Medieval village in Tuscany, who bones looked to all intents and purposes as if they had come from a fossil site. It is a rare example of completing a project drawing conclusions and drawing a line under the research, our contribution done.