Across the Northe Sea: A Review
Exactly three centuries ago last year, Johan Picardt, parson of Coevorder in Drenthe and Adviser for Land-Reclamation, wrote in a regional study worthy of comparison with his contemporary John Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica: ‘Our fore-fathers had not pen, ink, nor paper, which had they possessed would have enabled us to learn of strange things. Howsomever, they have bequeathed us signs enough if only it were that we could read them.’ Each one of the three volumes from the second of which my quotation comes clearly shows the ways in which archaeological research in the Low Countries has vindicated Picardt’s statement. Today archaeology in the Netherlands is a matter of exemplary close-knit co-operation between State institutions, universities, local societies, and the private individual, while recently Belgium has taken important steps in the systemization of pre- and protohistoric studies.Although the Low Countries can hardly be regarded as a primary area of development, their coastal position at the north-western limit of the transcontinental routes has made them a cultural entrepôt of particular significance for the British archaeologist. In this context Professor De Laet’s book in the ‘Ancient Peoples and Places’ series is all the more welcome in that it is the first English summary of the pre-Roman archaeology of the region.De Voorgeschiedenis der Lage Landen is a much expanded and corrected version of De Laet’s volume, with Professor Glasbergen’s collaboration giving a more balanced account of the Dutch evidence. The third book, a double volume of Antiquity and Survival, offers a lavishly illustrated symposium of one hundred centuries of the Netherlands, and although the promised English language edition is not to be, the Trustees of the Prince Bernhard Foundation and the Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek are to be warmly thanked for giving their support to Honderd Eeuwen Nederland.