A hunebed or passage grave is a megalithic tomb from the Neolithic (New Stone Age). Hunebedden were erected by people from the Funnel Beaker Culture (Dutch: Trechterbekercultuur), a Neolithic culture in Northern Europe from about 4350 to 2800/2700 BC. The hunebedden are over 5000 years old…how amazing is that? Since there are no mountains in the Netherlands, the cairns used to construct these passage graves had to come from somewhere. Most likely these cairns ended up in the Netherlands when the ice pushed down during the last Ice Age. There are also passage graves in Ireland, Denmark and Germany.
Sadly, some people find it entertaining to graffiti these final resting places of essentially our ancestors or climb on them! Personally, I find that offensive. I mean, you don’t dance on someone’s grave, right? Unless one refers to the figure of speech.
I studied archaeology at uni and I specialised in European prehistory. It was fascinating to learn about prehistoric people that lived in what is now the Netherlands. I loved it so much and those four years at uni flew by. I took these photos during a field trip to the hunebedden. To see examples of material culture from past times with my own eyes was amazing.
To me, the hunebedden are fascinating remains of people that came before us. Who saw a world vastly different to our own. Who helped shape the culture of the country I live in. And for that, I’m in awe.
Alive and Trekking 
It is impressive to see these delicate constructions with stones weighing many tonnes. For me amazing how the people managed to get up these really heavy stones 5,000 years ago without nowaydays technology and machinery!
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Absolutely! The ingenuity an persistence they must have had!
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Wow. These are beautiful and soulful, and I’m happy to learn something new besides. As for climbing on top of these, I can see children wanting to do so, and I can also see the opportunity to teach them why not. As for adults … SMH.
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Glad you enjoy. Of course it’s fun for kids to climb, but they can also climb other things. And adults…myeah. Comes down to respect, I suppose.
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Totally! And I agree it is important to teach children (who then hopefully grow up to be respectful adults) where it is or is not appropriate to climb.
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You would think and hope so! But people have different views on what is appropriate, so it’s a difficult thing to tackle.
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Indeed. And culturally this might vary, as well. Being as aware as we can is sometimes the best one can do …
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Indeed!
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Wow.. never knew it existed..
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Pretty impressive, eh?
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Fascinating that these ancient peoples could even create this structure. I’m with you on the graffiti. It’s so disrespectful.
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I think so too!
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