Four submerged villages found in Noordoostpolder

[Judi Lynn]

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2020 - 08:30



Maritime archaeologist Yftinus van Popta of the University of Groningen discovered four submerged villages in the northeastern part of the Zuiderzee area. His research shows that the first inhabitants lived in the area in the 10th and 11th centuries, when they started clearing and preparing the land for agriculture. Van Popta will get his doctorate for this research on Thursday, Omroep Flevoland reports.

For a long time, it was thought that Urk and Schokland were the only two settlements in the Noordsoostpolder in the late Middle Ages. Archaeological finds in the area were often attributed to items that fell from ships. But Van Popta did not believe that. "Those things ended up there between 1100 and 1300 AD. The oldest ships were there between 1250 and 1300 AD," he said to the broadcaster.

Van Popta made a reconstruction of what he believed the area looked like in the past by combining archaeological finds, soil profiles, historical maps, elevation maps, and satellite images in a spatial computer program. He learned that the archaeological material in the places where he suspected villages used to be consisted mainly of bones, bricks and pottery. "Bricks are the remains of houses, bones come from the meat they ate, and the pottery they cooked with," he said.

That was reason for him to do some digging on one of the sites, which led him to the discovery of four drowned villages - Marcnesse, Nagele, Fenehuysen I and Fenehuysen II.

More:
https://nltimes.nl/2020/10/26/four-submerged-villages-found-noordoostpolder

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Archaeologist rediscovers drowned villages in the Noordoostpolder | NOW
October 26, 2020

An archaeologist from the University of Groningen has found the location of four submerged villages in the Noordoostpolder. Yftinus van Popta will receive her doctorate on Thursday research.

It was already known that besides Urk and Schokland there were other inhabited islands in the area that is now the Noordoostpolder. But until now it was unclear where these islands were located. It was long thought that it would be impossible to find them, because the Zuiderzee would have washed away all the remains.

Maritime archaeologist Van Popta now says that archaeological finds that have long been considered ship waste, such as pottery and bricks, are actually remnants of the disappeared villages. These are the villages of Nagele, Marcnesse, Fenehuysen I and Fenehuysen II.

With his five-year research, Van Popta was able to map the landscape and habitation in the late Middle Ages from 1100 to 1400. The research shows that the villages were established between 1100 and 1300. At that time, the area consisted of unexplored peat landscape with lakes. First farmers settled there, later fishermen, lords and traders joined.

More:
https://tekdeeps.com/archaeologist-rediscovers-drowned-villages-in-the-noordoostpolder-now/

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Please take a moment to scan a page of many thumbnail images of this region. It was amazing to see them for the first time.

Noordoostpolder:

https://tinyurl.com/y29pp5fn

[JDC]

1. Interesting.

Anyone else notice that they refer to Van Popta as male and female? "Received her doctorate" "with his five year research"