Finney Finds Big Rocks

 This is a boulder garden. Easy to take care of. These rocks traveled here during the Saalian Ice Age. About 150,000 years ago, the northern area of the Netherlands was covered in a sheet of ice about 1 km thick. Carrying glacial rubble, clay, sand, gravel, and lumps of stone, this ice came from Sweden and Finland. When the ice retreated a thick layer of loamy boulder clay and these erratic boulders were left behind. Many of these rocks are known as Indicator Stones that tell us exactly where in Scandinavia they come from. These rocks were collected from all over Drenthe and placed here. Hence the name boulder garden. 

There are Dolmen or Hunebeddens all over Europe. During the Neolithic period, megalithic architecture appeared.These large stone structures were used as burial sites, temples or standing stone formations. In the Netherlands it is believed there are only burial complexes. These large stone tombs or hunebeddens were built between 3470 and 3240 BC by a Neolithic group called funnelbeakers also known as some of the first farmers.

This is D2, one of 11 hunebed found in Drenthe. D27 is the largest Hunebed in the Netherlands at 22.6 m long and 4-6 m wide and 1.75 m tall. It is one of the only excavated hunebeds as there is great support to leave them be.

It has 9 lintel stones, 28 upright supporting stones, 5 gateposts and 2 ring stones. The largest stone weighs 20 tons. It is believed they used round logs to make the stones roll. When the stones were in place the dug out the soil away from underneath creating a chamber. Originally the hunebeds were covered by earth, sand and boulders. 

These hunebeds are 5400 years old and older than the pyramids and stonehenge. They don't know exactly what they were for but they were oriented east to west or where the sun came up. The entrance was usually on the sunny side. So worship, tombs for the elite or meeting points for people. No matter which they seem to have brought groups together. Very few bones were found under them but lots of pottery etc. found around and in them.

For scale. Two Canadians found meandering around the boulder garden.

Note how flat they are on the bottom, round on the top and pretty close to the same height off the ground. Boulders 5 and 6 are two halves of the same stone. Why and how? No one really knows.

Juat a  piece of info I came across in a recent science paper. The Neolithic peoples population declined severely between 5300 and 4900 BC and there is evidence that it was caused by an early plague possibly by a genetic variation of Yersinnia