Times Fade Away

In this book a new model for the neolithization of the Netherlands is presented. For this study ethnographic data have been used of first contacts between economically and socially highly dissimilar societies. The model has been tested against a large-scale regional investigation: the Meuse Valley Project and a series of excavations. Three of these excavations are described in detail, yielding new and important data. These concern a Late Mesolithic site at Merselo and two sites of the first farmers in the coversand region. In conclusion a synthesis is provided stating that social processes have been crucial to the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic and that this transition has been slow and gradual.