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_Mysterious Megalithes in Drenthe_
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_Everyone has heard of Stonehenge in England and dolmens and menhirs
in France. But who knows of even older and more numerous megalithes in
Holland..? Even most of the Dutch themselves are unaware of the
richness of the prehistoric monuments in their own country. But they
exist..!,and they are there for over 5000 years. Older than the
Egyptian pyramids! Built of huge granite stones, some of them weighing
over 25,000 kilograms, dragged to the spot and piled up to form a
rectangular stonegrave. Unbelievable, but true._

_There are still 54 of them. 52 in the province of [2]Drenthe and 2 in
the adjacent province of Groningen. "Hunebedden" as they are called in
Holland. But not built by Hunen (or huynen = giants) and not beds but
graves as we know now. So Drenthe, in the northern part of the
country, is the hunebedden-province. It's a province of outstanding
beauty with sanddunes, woods, moors, heather, picturesque villages,
200 years old farmhouses with thatched roofs. And mysterious
stonegraves..!_

_In Drenthe there are no mountains or rocks. But hunebedden are made
of huge stones. Where did they come from..? The answer is: from
Scandinavia. About 200,000 years ago, during an ice-period, Holland
and most of northern Europe was covered by a thick layer of ice. The
big boulders of which the hunebedden are made of have been transported
to Holland by slow moving ice-glaciers._ _Even today, digging in
Drenthe's soil, smaller and bigger stones emerge._
_About 4000 BC the hunters that visited Drenthe before, changed their
culture and lifestyle radically.   They learned to grew wheat, to
domestisize cattle and to build farmhouses. They settled here as the
first farmers in the region. Archaeologists call this period the
Neolithics or New Stone Age.  This did not happen only here but also
in the south of Sweden, in Denmark and the northwest of [3]Germany.
These  farmers cut the woods with stone axes and cultivated the arable
land. About 3450 BC they started building  huge stonegraves using the
big boulders that were scattered all over the place. They also made
all sorts of [4]earthenware, many of them in the form of a funnel.
Because of that archaeologists say this people belong to The Funnel
Beaker Culture._

_So there is no mystery after all..? Yes there is. The big question
remains unanswered. Why did these simple farmers make such a
tremendous effort to drag those heavy boulders to a construction site
and pile them up to making a huge stonegrave? And how on earth did
they do this..? There are several [5]theories but even today it would
be a hell of a job..! A feeling of great astonishment and admiration
remains._

N.B. To be exact, hunebedden in Holland are "Passage Graves" rather
than dolmens, Dolmens are in fact smaller and have no passage stones
for an entrance.
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[7]CheckStat 

References

1. http://users.bart.nl/~jbmeijer/d53eng.htm
2. http://users.bart.nl/~jbmeijer/dr_eng.htm
3. http://users.bart.nl/~jbmeijer/huveneng.htm
4. http://users.bart.nl/~jbmeijer/bkrseng.htm
5. http://users.bart.nl/~jbmeijer/bouweng.htm
6. LYNXIMGMAP:file://localhost/www/sat/files/engels.htm#balkeng.map
7. http://checkstat.nl/cgi-bin/show.cgi?jbmeijer