Waar de doden woonden. De samenhang tussen de locaties van laat-prehistorische urnenvelden en nederzettingen

Where the dead dwelt. The relation between the locations of late prehistoric burial grounds and settlements. This article addresses the question whether there is an association between the choice of locations of urnfields and contemporaneous settlements in the province of Drenthe. For both urnfield and settlement, three factors related to location choice have been tested in a GIS: physical geography (soil type, water table and geomorphology), visibility from the surrounding fields, and the presence of visible funerary monuments from earlier periods, especially megalithic tombs (Dutch: hunebedden) and Bronze Age burial mounds. The results have been compared: both urnfields and settlements show a preference for relatively high locations. Probably, this similarity is related to the requirements of dwelling and agriculture: burial follows habitation. However, in the choice of urnfield location, the proximity of earlier funerary elements was also taken into account. This does indicate a difference between urnfield and settlement location choice, despite the earlier-mentioned similarities between the two.