Abstract
Due to the excellent conservation circumstances, the North Sea coast has a fantastic record of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement sites. Mesolithic and Neolithic coastal wetland communities are well studied, but a coherent image of coastal populations of the Bronze Age is strikingly absent. This absence is the more remarkable given the richness of the record for this period: from the archaeological evidence it is clear that between 2000 and 800 BC the wetlands along the North Sea coast were densely inhabited by full farming communities. The position of these wetlands may not have been unlike that of the Low Countries today: very well suited for arable farming and stock raising and central in trade and communication networks, both with the uplands as well as overseas. The proposed project revolves around the thesis that Bronze Age coastal communities were thriving farming communities with their own cultural identity and with a central position in communication networks. There is hardly a region thinkable that is better suited for studying prehistoric communities on the North Sea coast than the Netherlands. Not only was its location central in a traffic geographical sense, but also can the Netherlands boast of having one of the best preserved Bronze Age landscapes in north-western Europe: the fossil landscapes of West Frisia. Therefore the proposed project focuses on these extensively excavated but poorly published archaeological sites as case study of coastal farming communities.