The Frisian terps and Groningen mounds

The fertile grazing lands along the Frisian coast formed an attractive place for our ancestors to settle. However, periods of flooding alternated with periods when the land was largely dry. Although the inhabitants of this area often chose existing natural heights such as quelders and riverbanks as settlement sites, many people lived at sea level during the early period of colonization. Thus, not everyone succeeded in keeping their feet dry when the water, pushed by storms and high tides, invaded the farmland. Many fled from the water, while others seemingly refused to leave their estates and raised their settlements with manure and quelder sods until heights of almost ten meters were gradually reached. These elevations or terps are now a characteristic feature of the Frisian landscape.

Objects that have been excavated over the years from these layers have played an important role in reconstructing the early history of Friesland and its inhabitants.

In Groningen, terps are usually called "wierdes." The villages arose because many of these house terps grew together into a village. This process, although halted, can still be recognized in the form of three or more elevations in the landscape on which sometimes a farm still stands.

After the 14th century, the danger of conquests by warlords was perhaps as great as that of flooding, although the latter still occurred frequently. As a result, in some places fortifications, such as towers and stone houses, were built, which often had little to do with the formation of terps. Most terps date from before the major diking (before around the year 1000).

Pieter Erauw