I want to start in 2007, when I finished by BA thesis on "Late Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes in the Western Netherlands between Oer-IJ & Old Rhine estuaries". In September of that year I started as a Research Master (MPhil) student in Leiden, which allowed me for two years of studying and research instead of the normal one year. For instance, I helped on the production of both the Festschrift and "Scientific Farewell Party" for Prof. Dr. L.P. Louwe Kooijmans in 2008 (Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 40; http://www.sidestone.com/bookshop/between-foraging-and-farming), with contributions on various aspects of Neolithisation in Europe. In this book is also a much discussed paper by Alison Sheridan on Bell Beaker mobility and diffusion from the Netherlands to Scotland.
Me in 2007, nearly eight years ago, at the excavation of two Iron Age barrows at Apeldoorn-Echoput (photo by Maarten Wispelwey, then municipal archaeologist of Apeldoorn)
Also, in August 2007 (together with Anneminke Bakker) and August 2008 (together with Simone Lemmers) I contributed to the excavations at Stonehenge, as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Prof. Dr. Mike Parker Pearson (then University of Sheffield, now UCL, London).
Excavation of Amesbury 42 ditch in 2008 (me, Simone, and someone dressed up for an art-project and several other students; photo by Sandra Thomas).
As MPhil students in 2007/2008, Cristel Metsch, Hedwig Ponjee, Yvonne Achterkamp and me did a research seminar on Late Neolithic grave goods.
As our professor Harry Fokkens had already shown in his oratory speech (Fokkens 2005), Bell Beaker graves consisted of various specific sets of objects, which, when approached from an anthropological perspective focusing on identity and personhood, related more to the creation of an 'ideal ancestor' by the living community, than to the ideas of elites and warriors representing themselves through the grave, as previous researchers had come up with.
We set out to study similar patterns in earlier Corded Ware burials across Europe. My research paper thus focused on Eastern European (Baltic and Polish) graves, and I found that many graves contained ceramic vessels (mostly beakers), flint axes, stone hammer axe heads and pendants of amber or boar tusks. Additionally, these graves were individual inhumation burials, with a distinct choice in ritual of bodily positioning. This pattern occurred in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kaliningrad and across Poland. For me it was an adventure, which took me on several train trips across the Netherlands to the depths of several university and regional libraries (who has ever heard of the late 19th century journal Sitzungsberichte der Altertumsgesellschaft Prussia? I found it in a library in Leeuwarden!). The data didn't get published unfortunately, but a report is still found on my academia page (https://uni-kiel.academia.edu/JosKleijne).
What it did do was lighten the flame for studying Late Neolithic societies and the changes taking place from pre-Bell Beaker towards Bell Beaker!
Later, I went on to do other things (Erasmus study exchange to Sheffield, MPhil thesis on Bronze Age pottery and maritime exchange, work at DANS on the persistence and availability of grey literature and archaeological documentation), but thanks to the RCE (Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands) I could again work on Corded Ware societies very soon.
As a project leader for (unfortunately) only a part of the Odyssee-project "Unlocking Noord-Holland's Late Neolithic Treasure Chest", I worked on the editing of the monographs of Keinsmerbrug (as assistant editor) and Mienakker (as final editor), wrote several chapters for the Mienakker volume (Introduction with Liesbeth Theunissen; Landscape and Chronology with Henk Weerts) and I coordinated the writing of the Mienakker monograph synthesis in which all specialists and editors contributed. For the third monograph (on Zeewijk) I led the scientific debate and wrote the first draft of the synthesis, until my job at the RCE ended in September 2013.
We (PhDs Sandra Beckerman, Gary Nobles, Virginia García-Díaz and me) also visited Kiel, Germany, for the third workshop on "Human Development in Landscapes". Here we contributed to a session on Corded Ware and Bell Beaker landscapes. The published paper we wrote is hopefully coming out later this year!! (Oh and a side-note here: some advertisement for the fourth "Human Development in Landscapes" workshop in Kiel, this March).
So there I was, in September 2013, without a job but inspired to do research on Late Neolithic societies in Europe. I contacted Prof. Fokkens and after some long conversations we worked on a research application to study exactly this: the ways in which local communities, such as on the Dutch Corded Ware settlements studied earlier, adopted and interpreted the Bell Beaker across Europe. Prof. Fokkens had by then discussed this problem in an edited book of the The Hague EAA conference, focusing on the Dutch Vlaardingen, Corded Ware and Bell Beaker relationships. I tried to get funding in the Netherlands, but after this had failed I turned to Kiel (with Prof. Fokkens' consent) and got accepted here!1
Now I'm being supervised by three distinguished scholars who have contributed much to this particular topic: Prof. Dr. J. Müller (1st supervisor), PD Dr. M. Furholt (2nd) and Prof. Dr. H. Fokkens (3rd). The project, called "Beginning of Beaker" started on November 1st 2014 and will end November 1st 2017.
1 In the mean time I founded my own private company (MAK Onderzoek & Advies) and got two assignments. Helping Drs. M. Wansleeben (Leiden University) for the Ariadne-project and writing a synthesis on Bronze Age Kennemerland for the Province of North-Holland. Both projects are finished now.↩
