Transformations in a forager and farmer landscape:A cultural biography of prehistoric Flevoland

In this last chapter, all these insights shall be assessed in relation to each other and shall be placed and interpreted in a wider geographical framework. The themes of the previous four chapters will be guiding in this. We have seen that the landscape completely changed in the course of the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. This change had far-reaching implications for the opportunities to make use of the landscape. The question to be answered is what picture we see when we combine all the archaeological and palaeolandscape data from Flevoland. On the one hand, we want to look at the exploitation of the landscape from an economic perspective: what relationship existed between the characteristics of the structurally-changing landscape and the use of food and non-food sources? On the other hand, we want to look at the landscape from a social-cosmological perspective: what relationship existed between the roles of places – and the connection between these places – in the dynamic landscape and how did that give structure to the historical significance of the landscape for the prehistoric inhabitants? To conclude, a discussion will be had about the socialcultural relationships, as interpreted from the data