Hunebedden: The Neolithic Megalithic Tombs of Drenthe

The hunebedden are Neolithic megalithic tombs in the north-eastern Netherlands, built from huge glacial boulders around 3400–3100 BC by farmers of the Funnelbeaker culture. Fifty-four survive, 52 of them in the province of Drenthe. They are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands and have inspired stories of giants for centuries.

Background: the Funnelbeaker farmers

Farming had spread into the Low Countries by around 5300 BC, but the sandy uplands of the north were settled by farmers later. From around 4000 BC communities of the Funnelbeaker culture lived across a wide area from the Netherlands through northern Germany and Denmark to southern Scandinavia and Poland. Archaeologists name them after their typical pottery, which has a funnel-shaped neck; in Dutch the culture is called the Trechterbekercultuur.

These people grew wheat and barley, kept cattle, pigs and sheep, and used polished flint axes to clear woodland. Across their territory they built megalithic tombs. In the Netherlands most were built during a relatively short period, around 3400 to 3100 BC; some studies place the main building phase slightly earlier, c. 3470–3250 BC.

Glacial boulders

The stones of the hunebedden were not quarried. During the Saalian glaciation, roughly 150,000 years ago, ice sheets from Scandinavia carried granite and other boulders into the northern Netherlands and left them scattered across the land. The Hondsrug, a long sandy ridge in eastern Drenthe, was particularly rich in such erratic boulders, and many hunebedden lie along it.

The builders dragged the boulders into position, probably using wooden sledges, rollers and ropes, and lifted capstones on earth ramps. The heaviest capstones are estimated at more than 20 tonnes.

Design and contents

Most hunebedden are passage graves. A rectangular chamber of upright stones (side stones) was roofed with capstones, and a short passage of stones on the south side, usually the long side, led into it. The whole structure was originally covered with a mound of sand and turf, framed by a ring of kerb stones. Over time the mounds eroded or were removed, leaving the bare stone skeletons seen today.

The tombs were used for collective burials over many generations. Human bones rarely survive in the acidic sandy soil, but excavations have found large amounts of pottery, including funnel beakers, bowls and collared flasks, together with flint axes, arrowheads and amber beads. Some tombs were reused by later peoples, including makers of Single Grave and Bell Beaker pottery.

The largest hunebed is D27 at Borger, about 22 metres long, with nine capstones. Other well-known examples include the pair D53 and D54 at Havelte and the hunebedden near Emmen and Annen.

Giants, devils and early science

The word hunebed is usually explained as “giant’s bed”, from an old word for giant. In 1660 the minister Johan Picardt published a history of the region claiming that the tombs were built by giants, an idea that became famous. Other local stories linked the stones with the Devil or with witches.

The hunebedden also have an important place in the history of archaeology. In 1685 Titia Brongersma, a poet from Groningen, had the hunebed at Borger dug into and recorded the finds of pottery, one of the earliest documented excavations in the Netherlands. In 1734 the States of Drenthe passed a resolution protecting the hunebedden from damage, among the earliest heritage protection laws in Europe.

Many tombs were nevertheless destroyed or damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries, as stones were taken for road building, dykes and harbour works. In 1918 the archaeologist Albert Egges van Giffen excavated D53 at Havelte, and between 1925 and 1927 he published a full atlas of all the surviving hunebedden, which remains a standard reference.

The hunebedden today

All the surviving hunebedden are protected national monuments. They are numbered D1 to D54 for Drenthe and G1 to G5 for Groningen, though some numbered tombs have been lost or moved. The Hunebedcentrum at Borger, a museum and visitor centre beside D27, explains the monuments and the lives of their builders.

The hunebedden belong to a wider tradition of megalithic tombs across Atlantic and northern Europe, from Newgrange in Ireland and Pentre Ifan in Wales to the dolmens of Denmark and northern Germany. Like these, they reflect the new ways of life and belief that followed the spread of farming, which began thousands of years earlier in the Fertile Crescent.

Timeline

• c. 150,000 years ago: Saalian ice sheets carry Scandinavian boulders into the northern Netherlands.
• c. 3400–3100 BC: Funnelbeaker communities build the hunebedden.
• 1660: Johan Picardt attributes the tombs to giants.
• 1685: Titia Brongersma digs into the hunebed at Borger.
• 1734: The States of Drenthe pass a resolution protecting the hunebedden.
• 1918: Albert Egges van Giffen excavates D53 at Havelte.
• 1925–1927: Van Giffen publishes his atlas of the hunebedden.

Why it matters

The hunebedden are the most visible traces of the Netherlands’ first farming communities and among the best-preserved Funnelbeaker monuments in Europe. Their long history of study and protection, from 17th-century tales of giants to modern archaeology, also makes them a landmark in the development of heritage care.