Schansen en motten in de Schinveldse bossen

Initially, the moated and walled, rectangular areas are regarded as 'sconces' and they are also called that by the local population. There was no living on redoubts.
They were fortified places, which were secured on the inside of the ditch by an excavated water ditch and a rampart plus pallisade fence or a braided hedge. The location in swamp areas increased the protection.
The redoubts were the first stage in the development of the 'motte'. There is talk of a motte with a two-part system with an artificially raised mound and forecourt.
Entrenchments were also made in later periods, such as the peasant redoubts in the Eighty Years' War. In the Carolingian period between 900 and 1000, when the first landed gentry arose here, the construction of moated sites began.
Draining the residential mound was the most important function of the canal in an area with a high water level. Sometimes the canal contributed to the status of the resident, who somewhat imitated the higher nobility.
In England there are concentrations of 'moated sites' in wet areas from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth century. however, the 'moated sites' of Schinveld are a unique exception.
Earth drillings carried out in May 2008 indicate a short period of habitation at the end of the late Middle Ages and the transition to the modern era (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries).
Still clearly visible traces hide an even older landscape, witness pottery from 1100 to 1250, prehistoric flint tools, grindstones and urnfields found in the area, and the question remains what role the locations of the moated sites play. played in it.
For centuries, the moated areas lay dormant and were known only to a few. When the municipality of Onderbanken started realizing the Roode Beek-Rodebach nature park in 2005, the time was right to also historic route to life.
Visual artist Jos van Wunnik did the preparatory work. In 2006, as part of an archeology project by the IKL foundation, the first earthen monuments to protect against the Scottish highlanders were fenced in on behalf of the Nature Monuments Association.
Where necessary, they were cleared of vegetation, which made the relief more visible and preserved for the future.

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