Veni research Roy van Beek
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded dr. Roy van Beek a Veni grant. This grant offers young researchers the possibility to develop their innovative ideas for a period of three or four years.
This section of a map made by Nicolaas ten Have (1652) clearly demonstrates the landscape structure of Twente shortly after the Middle Ages: a heterogeneous region consisting of extensive peat bogs, various stream valleys and prominent sandy ridges
The awarded research proposal is called Deconstructing stability. Modelling changing environmental conditions and man-land relations in the Pleistocene landscape of Twente (2850 - 12 BC).
The project amongst others aims to reconstruct the late prehistoric landscape and habitation development of the Twente region (eastern Netherlands) by using computer simulations, in cooperation with researchers of Wageningen University. During the Holocene various landscape formation processes occurred in this dynamic and heterogeneous region, such as the development of extensive peat bogs. The research methods that will be developed might also be relevant for modelling landscape formation processes in other regions and periods. The research will be done at Leiden University.
Roy van Beek is also connected to Ghent University (Belgium) as a guest lecturer on the subject of late prehistoric archaeology of northwestern Europe.
Excavation of a Middle Bronze Age barrow near the hamlet of Gammelke, Twente (photo Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands)