GORINCHEM – Gorinchem has a new national monument: the Dalem dune in the new housing estate south of the Van Andel Spruytlaan. Deep in the ground, it contains traces of the first inhabitants who lived there more than seven thousand years ago.
The discovery of the donk in 2000 came as a complete surprise. Archaeologists who conducted research prior to the development of the new Laag Dalem Zuid district had not expected to find a donk in the area.
Thumb scrapers, flint
Elsewhere in the Alblasserwaard – especially around Hoogblokland and Hoornaar – there are dozens. In Gorinchem, on the other hand, no donks have been discovered. These were formed at the end of the last ice age: the landscape consisted of wide rivers full of sandbanks. Wind and water formed meter-high river dunes on those banks.
In the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age 8500 – 4000 BC) they had degenerated into a kind of islands in a marshy area. The prehistoric population that lived mainly from hunting, sought refuge there. The traces they left behind disappeared because their descendants also used the land. However, the Dalemse donk remained virtually intact. According to the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), this is precisely what makes it special.
When the archaeological site was discovered, the municipality of Gorinchem, in consultation with project developer Heijmans Vastgoed, decided to consult with the government at the same time. The National Service for Archaeological Heritage – the predecessor of the RCE – immediately indicated that it wanted to eventually designate the area as a national monument. While at that time only traces from the Neolithic (early Stone Age 400-2200 BC) had been found. However, it immediately led to the adjustment of the new construction plans, so that the donk ultimately remained undeveloped.
It is now a park and the donk is marked with two works of art (photo) and a play object. In the ground, the archaeologists found various waste layers that start at a depth of one and a half meters. Bone remains, charcoal and fragments of pottery were found there. At a greater depth - 2,60 meters below ground level - a skull fragment was brought to the surface with a test drilling. Because traces of red ochre that was used in burial rituals were also found in the same soil, the archaeologists do not rule out that people were buried there.
For residents whose houses border the donk, the designation as a national monument means that they must apply for a permit under the Monuments Act for any groundwork deeper than one and a half metres.
AD Rivierenland
Anja Broeken
02-05-2011