The White Mountain

First inhabitants: hunters and farmers

At the end of the Ancient Stone Age, about 13,000 years ago, modern humans (homo sapiens) appeared on the scene. In this last period of the Ice Age it was still very cold, but in the somewhat warmer intermediate periods hunters moved around in our regions who had provided for reindeer herds. These hunters stayed in base camps and smaller hunting camps. After a few weeks or months, they moved on with the whole family after the reindeer herds.

Around 8000 BC. It quickly began to warm and the Ice Age was over. The landscape around the Kuiperberg showed a wooded view far into the perimeter. The climate improvement had ensured the growth of birches, hazels and oaks. Animal species such as the boar, moose, primeval cattle, deer and roe deer populated the landscape. The stream valleys and swamps were a rich food source for water game. The people still moved around, but in a much smaller area and they lived on a much wider range of game, fish and plant food sources. This period lasted until about 4500 BC. Chr. and is called the Middle Stone Age. The tool was very similar to what was used in earlier periods, but much smaller and finer.

After the Middle Stone Age, the Young Stone Age followed. The wandering way of life gave way to a permanent settlement in the same place with water and meadows in the vicinity. Cattle, pigs, sheep and goats were kept. There was simple arable farming and vegetables were also grown. Hunting remained important. Pottery pots were also made for the first time.

The many finds around Ootmarsum consist mainly of stone tools: axes, sickles, arrows, scrapers, blades and scrapers. These can be distinguished from natural pieces of flint by the so-called retouches, ends worked by human hands. Wooden objects were also found elsewhere. The cemeteries of these people, including the burial mounds in the Springendal and the urn fields at Haarle and Vasse, indicate a frequent and long-term habitation of this area. Exceptional was the discovery in 1958 during the excavation of a burial mound in Mander, when the corpse silhouette of a man was discovered in a grave, with a carved flint knife as a grave gift. The silhouette went down in history as "the man of Mander".

routeburo