Chalcolithic

People in prehistory did not get very old, meaning one had to grow up much earlier. There was less time to remain a child than nowadays. Besides this, life was very hard...

In the Old and Middle Stone Age (in the Netherlands about 250.000 - 7.300 years ago) the people were hunters & gatherers. They hunted for wild animals, but did not keep them themselves...

We cannot say for sure. We presume cooking from the Neolithic on when they started to use ceramic vessels – they prepared various gruels or soups, but it was possible...

The composition of grown plants differs both regionally and temporarily and is dependent on the climate, local conditions, fertility of soil and so on...

The Stone Age people died - in respect to present - very early. Poor hygiene, illnesses, bad nourishment and burden of labour lead to an average life expectancy of 20-25 years. Many children already died in their first 4 years...

First, enough large stones needed to be collected. Presumably this happened in the neighbourhood where the megalithic tomb was planned. Researchers presume the stones were not moved...

There are both large and small megalithic tombs in Drenthe (NL). The largest is near Borger. The most heavy stones used for this one weigh about 23,000 kilos!

It is a protection for the roof, to keep sparks from getting up in to it. Right now we have a piece of wool cloth, in our last house we had animal skin. As soon as we can we are building a frame of willow which we are going to coat with clay.

Well, from what we’ve seen we don’t need any more openings for the smoke to get out. The ones in each end creates a draft which makes the smoke rise up to the ceiling and escape easily without allowing any to be disturbing.

Unfortunately large parts of prehistoric house walls are only rarely preserved to allow us to ponder the question of windows. In archaeological open-air museums they reconstruct windows according to traditional house building as very small which seems probable...