Roy Van Beek

Roy Van Beek
Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Soil Geography and Landscape/Cultural Geography

PhD

About

86
Publications
44,165
Reads
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419
Citations
Introduction
I am Associate Professor in Landscape Archaeology at the departments of Soil Geography and Landscape (SGL) and Cultural Geography (GEO) of Wageningen University (The Netherlands). I study human-landscape interactions over long time scales by means of developing and applying innovative, interdisciplinary methods, and investigate how we can use that knowledge to create future-proof, regenerative landscapes.
Additional affiliations
September 2015 - present
Université de Rennes 2
Position
  • PostDoc Position
November 2011 - May 2015
Leiden University
Position
  • PostDoc Position
September 2010 - September 2013
Ghent University
Position
  • Guest lecturer

Publications

Publications (86)
Article
Full-text available
The awareness that cultural heritage plays an influential role in shared identities and in both spatial and environmental development has significantly increased in recent years. International collaboration and treaties, such as the ‘FARO-convention’ in 2005 emphasize the importance of heritage in relation to aspects of human rights and demography....
Article
Full-text available
Bog body studies have focused on rich individual biographies, largely neglecting broader spatial and temporal trends. Here, the authors present the first large-scale overview of well-dated human remains from northern European mires, based on a database of 266 sites and more than 1000 bog mummies, bog skeletons and disarticulated/partial skeletal re...
Article
Full-text available
On the mainland of northwest Europe generally only remnants of former peat landscapes subsist. Due to the poor preservation of these landscapes, alternative approaches to reconstruct peat initiation and lateral expansion are needed compared to regions with intact peat cover. Here we aim (1) to find explanatory variables within a digital soil mappin...
Article
Full-text available
Landscape heritage is frequently contested as perspectives on heritage and landscape may vary across stakeholders. The present article makes a novel contribution by examining pathways to landscape heritage con-testation. We propose a distinction between (a) heritage as object in matterscape, being the physical landscape out-there, (b) heritage as m...
Article
Full-text available
In the course of the Holocene large parts of the Northwest European mainland became overgrown with peat, only a fraction of which has survived to the present day. The diachronic relations between peatland expansion, human habitation trends and vegetation dynamics are poorly understood. Gaining detailed insights in the interrelations between these p...
Chapter
Full-text available
Landschappen veranderen, of we dat nu leuk vinden of niet. Ik leerde van Bert Groenewoudt dat landschapsprocessen vorm krijgen onder invloed van een complex en alsmaar veranderend samenspel van ‘menselijke’ en ‘natuurlijke’ factoren, dat je ze alleen goed in de vingers krijgt door interdisciplinair onderzoek en kennis hierover waardevol kan zijn bi...
Article
Full-text available
Plaggic anthrosols demonstrate the significant and widespread influence of agriculture on the landscape of northern Europe and testify to increased land-use intensity over the last millennium. However, a lack of established chronologic methods to interrogate these soils has hindered research on their formation history, so the timing and process of...
Preprint
Full-text available
Plaggic anthrosols are one of the major features that contributed to the formation of the present-day landscape of northern part of Europe since the Middle Ages, but their formation history is rather poorly understood. The formation of plaggic anthrosols had an impact beyond the arable fields, impacting the entire landscape surrounding the arable f...
Article
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Scholars have radically turned away from the notion of ‘natural borders’ dictated by nature and now broadly agree that all borders are ‘artificial’ human constructs. However, there is a need to revisit environmental determinism in its nuances. We analyse the relation between distinct natural features and historical border development, using the not...
Article
Ooit waren grote delen van Europa bedekt met hoogveen. Daarvan is nog maar een fractie over. Tegenwoordig zijn de meeste hoogvenen onderdeel van beschermde natuurgebieden waar zeldzame planten en dieren voorkomen, en zijn ze belangrijk als opslagplaats van koolstof. Maar hoogvenen vertellen ook fascinerende verhalen over de mens, over geweld en gel...
Article
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Few natural landscapes have been so negatively stereotyped as raised bogs. These stereotypes as well as knowledge gaps on bog perceptions have hampered the development of nuanced and realistic views on humans’ historical relations to bogs. We studied variation in eight bog place meanings (attachment, beauty, biodiversity, functionality, risk, admir...
Preprint
Full-text available
In the mainland of Northwest Europe generally only remnants of former peat landscapes subsist. Due to the poor preservation of these landscapes, alternative approaches to reconstruct peat initiation and lateral expansion are needed compared to regions with intact peat cover. Here we aim (1) to find explanatory variables within a digital soil mappin...
Article
Full-text available
Attributing the start of peat growth to an absolute timescale requires dating the bottom of peat deposits overlying mineral sediment, often called the basal peat. Peat initiation is reflected in the stratigraphy as a gradual transition from mineral sediment to increasingly organic material, up to where it is called peat. So far, varying criteria ha...
Article
Full-text available
Scholars have radically turned away from the notion of ‘natural borders’ dictated by nature and now broadly agree that all borders are ‘artificial’ human constructs. However, there is a need to revisit environmental determinism in its nuances. We analyse the relation between distinct natural features and historical border development, using the not...
Article
Full-text available
Nederland is een waterland. Meer dan de helft van ons land ligt beneden zeeniveau, en de Rijn en Maas stromen ook nog door Nederland de zee in. Om te kunnen wonen in gebieden die kwetsbaar waren voor overstromingen, werden al vanaf de ijzertijd verdedigingswerken tegen het water aangelegd, waaronder vele duizenden kilometers aan dijken en terpen. O...
Article
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There is a growing interest for rescue and reuse of data from past studies (so‐called legacy data). Data loss is alarming, especially where natural archives are under threat, such as peat deposits. Here we develop a workflow for reuse of legacy radiocarbon dates in peatland studies, including a rigorous quality assessment that can be tailored to sp...
Article
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Commercialisation of resources taken from commons is considered problematic in several ways in traditional commons scholarship. In particular common-pool resource (CPR) theory argues that institutions for collective action such as commons are largely autonomous, experiencing little influence from either the market or the state, and focusing only on...
Article
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Large-amplitude meanders may form in low-energy rivers despite generally limited mobility in theses systems. Exceptionally large meanders which even extend beyond the valley sides have developed in the Overijsselse Vecht river (the Netherlands) between ca. 1400 CE (Common Era) and the early 1900s, when channelization occurred. Previous studies have...
Article
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Bog bodies are among the best-known archaeological finds worldwide. Much of the work on these often extremely well-preserved human remains has focused on forensics, whereas the environmental setting of the finds has been largely overlooked. This applies to both the ‘physical’ and ‘cultural’ landscape and constitutes a significant problem since the...
Article
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Humans triggered or accelerated erosion processes since prehistoric times through agricultural practices. Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) is widely used to quantify phases and rates of the corresponding landscape change, by measuring the last moment of daylight exposure of sediments. However, natural and anthropogenic mixing processes, such...
Article
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Past studies of archaeological bog finds, such as bog bodies, wooden trackways and a wide variety of other materials, are characterized by a strong focus on material culture. Their original environmental and cultural context has received far less attention. This paper centres on the original landscape setting of bog bodies. Interdisciplinary recons...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Peatlands are extraordinary archives for understanding prehistoric and historic landscape change and cultural processes. As a characterizing element of many lowland areas in Northern and Central Europe they have long been embedded in socio-cultural life and have undergone a range of natural and anthropogenic transformations. On the one hand, climat...
Article
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Various studies using pollen stratigraphies have demonstrated significant correlations between Holocene plant diversity, climate, and human activities. Studies that have analyzed longer Holocene timescales tend to discuss cultural data very superficially. This is remarkable because detailed insights into past human activities may be key to gain an...
Chapter
Full-text available
With the aim of providing ‘knowledge for informed choices’, a series of tools have been developed for archaeological heritage management in the Netherlands. They include maps, datasets, methods, guidelines, best practice and web-based applications to facilitate the effective and efficient selection of valuable archaeological remains. The products r...
Chapter
Full-text available
This study offers a regional and diachronic perspective on the development of the landscape, vegetation and habitation of the Twente region of the Netherlands since the Late Glacial. A detailed search for existing pollen data yielded 125 sites containing information from a wide variety of sampling contexts. A series of six evidence-based regional v...
Article
Full-text available
Various studies using pollen stratigraphies have demonstrated significant correlations between Holocene plant diversity, climate, and human activities. Studies that have analyzed longer Holocene timescales tend to discuss cultural data very superficially. This is remarkable because detailed insights into past human activities may be key to gain an...
Article
Full-text available
One of the most popular recent research themes in the early historical archaeology of Scandinavia and northern central Europe is the character and development of trade and communication, and the way these aspects are reflected in settlements and material culture. Until recently, little was known about the northwest German coastal area with regard t...
Article
Full-text available
In this article we try to explain why some pagan open-air cult sites were used until the twelfth to thirteenth centuries or even later, long after the introduction of Christianity (sixth to eighth centuries) in what are now the Netherlands. To reconstruct the Christianization process we link Milis’ 1986 model of phased Christianization with archaeo...
Article
Full-text available
Raised bogs are popular research subjects in various scientific disciplines such as palaeobotany, climatology, archaeology and historical geography. However, interdisciplinary studies using a long-term cultural perspective are rare. This paper aims to make a contribution in that field by exploring the long-term development of raised bogs in the Net...
Article
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Culturally oriented studies on raised bogs in the Netherlands and neighbouring areas either focus on regional scale levels or on site/object-based information. Interdisciplinary microregional studies are key to bridge the gap between these types of data and to reconstruct human-land relations in detail. This paper analyses which cultural and natura...
Article
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Interdisciplinary, landscape-oriented studies from an archaeological viewpoint in the Low Countries mainly concentrate on cultural and economic research questions. Focal points are the physical setting of settlements and cemeteries, land use patterns and subsistence economy. As a result, the collected data are rather site-based and one-dimensional....
Article
Full-text available
This study follows a multi-scalar interdisciplinary approach to reconstruct formation processes influencing the preservation of barrows. The southern Netherlands and northern / central Belgium were selected as pilot area. We arrive at three regional »sketches« signalling the most significant processes, which may serve as preludes for further modell...
Article
Full-text available
During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of Twello (central Netherlands) a relatively well-preserved Single Grave Culture burial was found. This offered the rare opportunity to study this monument by using modern techniques and to analyse it in its local and wider archaeological and environmental setting. At first sight, the burial...
Article
Full-text available
During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of Twello (central Netherlands) a relatively well-preserved Single Grave Culture burial was found. This offered the rare opportunity to study this monument by using modern techniques and to analyse it in its local and wider archaeological and environmental setting. At first sight, the burial...
Article
Full-text available
This study follows a multi-scalar interdisciplinary approach to reconstruct formation processes influencing the preservation of barrows. The southern Netherlands and northern/central Belgium were selected as pilot area. We arrive at three regional »sketches« signalling the most significant processes, which may serve as preludes for further modellin...
Article
Full-text available
The perception of and interaction with ancient relics in past societies has been intensively debated in the archaeology of north-western Europe. This paper aims to make a contribution to this debate by reconstructing the long-term history of late prehistoric barrows and urnfields in Flanders (Belgium). The period between the Late Bronze Age and High...
Article
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We present an interdisciplinary method for establishing date ranges of farm sites (A.D.800–present) and reconstructing regional settlement dynamics. An experimental field strategy was designed to refine estimates regarding the ages of individual farmsteads based on historical data and physical and historical geography. Archaeological test pitting w...
Article
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An extensive literature study and inventorisation of the La Tène glass bracelets found in Flanders (Belgium) shows that there is a great similarity in find assemblages between Flanders and the Netherlands. This has led to the conclusion that most of the La Tène glass bracelets from Flanders were produced in the workshops in the Lower Rhine region i...
Data
Pleistocene sandy soils, long-term vegetation developments, spatial dynamics, open fields Analysis of a large number of pollen samples from pools and wells has led to a more detailed understanding of the vegetation development in INTRODUCTION the eastern Netherlands between c. 1100 B.C. and A.D. 1500. During the Neolithic and the Bronze It is certa...
Article
Full-text available
In general models on Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (1100-500 BC) landscape organization, urnfields are interpreted as focal points that structured the movement of settlements across the landscape, and were located centrally within the settlement area. Urnfields were fixed, settlements shifted. These influential models are assumed to be valid f...
Article
Full-text available
In 1991 pleitten Roymans en Fokkens voor een integra-le benadering van het laatprehistorische cultuurland-schap. 1 Tot de jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw had de nadruk van het onderzoek vooral gelegen op grafheu-vels en urnenvelden, en die dominante positie werd vervolgens overgenomen door nederzettingsopgravin-gen. Begravingslocaties en woonplaats...
Article
In general models on Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (1100-500 BC) landscape organization, urnfields are interpreted as focal points that structured the movement of settlements across the landscape, and were located centrally within the settlement area. Urnfields were fixed, settlements shifted. These influential models are assumed to be valid f...
Article
Full-text available
General habitation models based on well-researched regions tend to be applied to other, less intensively studied regions, usually implicitly. However, whether they lend themselves to do that is hardly ever tested. It may even be that such general models prevent us from obtaining a clear view of patterns of supra-regional, regional, and local divers...
Article
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Roman-period archaeological research in the regions north and east of the Roman Empire generally focuses on either individual sites and finds or macroregional patterns. In this paper we demonstrate that interdisciplinary research on a regional level offers opportunities to gain new insights into site location, landscape organisation and the structu...
Chapter
Increasingly, the role of heritage management is to anticipate and guide future environmental change rather than to simply protect landscapes of the past. This charge presents a paradox for those invested in the preservation of the past: in order to preserve the historic environment, they have to collaborate with others who wish to change it, and i...
Article
Full-text available
For many years, archaeologists and historical geographers have been aware of a significant lacuna in research on the eastern Netherlands. Currently, urbanization, industrialization, water management measures and nature development projects have a growing impact on the landscape of this region. The Eastern Netherlands Project has two main objectives...
Article
Full-text available
For many years, archaeologists and historical geographers have been aware of a significant lacuna in research on the eastern Netherlands. Currently, urbanization, industrialization, water management measures and nature development projects have a growing impact on the landscape of this region. The Eastern Netherlands Project has two main objectives...
Article
Full-text available
In dit proefschrift wordt de landschapsgeschiedenis van Oost-Nederland onderzocht, dat vanwege de sterk gefragmenteerde landschapsstructuur wel als een ‘eilandenrijk’ wordt omschreven, en wel vanuit verschillende wetenschappelijke disciplines. Archeologische bronnen vormen de rode draad. De titel van dit proefschrift refereert aan de doelstelling o...
Article
Full-text available
Analysis of a large number of pollen samples from pools and wells has led to a more detailed understanding of the vegetation development in the eastern Netherlands between c. 1100 B.C. and A.D. 1500. During the Neolithic and the Bronze Age settlements were islands within a forest landscape, with natural clearings as the obvious starting points for...
Article
Full-text available
Aangezien urbanisatie, industrialisatie, waterbeheer en natuurontwikkeling in een hoog tempo ingrijpen in het Oost-Nederlandse landschap, komen het bodemarchief en het cultuurhistorisch landschap in deze dekzandgebieden onder steeds grotere druk te staan. Deze trend zal in de komende jaren naar verwachting alleen maar toenemen. Om een brede, wetens...