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D30 Exloo

Hunebed

Fieldnotes

Visited: April 14, 2014

This is an impressive hunebed, and one of the easiest to visit as it stands on a well-used tourist route through the Exloo Forest. It stands in a grassy clearing to the north of Boslaan, with a car-park immediately opposite, across the road. Such proximity does the hunebed few favours, however: the many visitors have eroded the immediate surroundings of the hunebed, which can become muddy after rain, while in 2005 vandals spray-painted the stones in rainbow colours. Fortunately, the paint was quickly removed by high-pressure cleaning, but at a cost, as the natural covering of lichens was destroyed, permanently altering the appearance of the stones.

Hunebed D30 Exloo measures 7.3 x 3.4 metres and originally possessed eight sidestones and four capstones. Unlike the majority of hunebedden, which are orientated east-west, this monument has a north-south axis. When originally investigated by Albert van Giffen in 1918, only two capstones remained, but a third was later recovered and replaced over the grave. The hunebed was found to have five layers of stone flooring, providing headroom of 1.7 metres up to the capstones, so that there would have been room for people of that time to stand erect within the structure. Between these floors were discovered potsherds from some 80 pots (dating between 3400-3050 BCE), stone hatchets, arrowheads and a heap of cremated human bones. And buried just outside the hunebed, researchers found three decorated bowls.

To access Hunebed D30 from Exloo, head west along the main street, Hoofdstraat then turn up Boslaan (the last road on the right before leaving Exloo). Continue for just over a kilometre and take the road that forks left into the forest. You will find the car-park 250 metres farther on, on your left, and D30 is just across the road.
LesHamilton Posted by LesHamilton
26th April 2014ce
Edited 17th December 2014ce

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