The empty fourth century

The hiatus of the 4th century AD in the terp regionDuring the 20th century, the population history of the terp regionof the northern Netherlands during the Migration Periodwas hotly debated. The new idea that the different materialculture of the 5th century, compared to the Roman Iron Age,indicates immigration by Anglo-Saxons was not accepted byeveryone, on nationalistic but also on theoretical grounds, sincethere is no one-to-one relation between material culture andethnic identity.This article summarizes and examines arguments and evidence.Pottery research supports the idea that most of the terpregion was not inhabited during the 4th century, with someexceptions such as Ezinge in the province of Groningen, andJelsum and Marssum in the province of Friesland. The hiatus isespecially clear when we compare coastal pottery to the potteryof the inland Pleistocene region, where habitation and the developmentof pottery style continued without interruption.Overseeing all the evidence, it seems that the terp region,especially the eastern part, the province of Groningen, was partof a socio-cultural network that extended far into northwesternGermany. Where habitation was uninterrupted within thisnetwork, in northwestern Germany, northern Drenthe, and ina small number of settlements in the terp region, pottery styledeveloped in largely the same way, often with decoration andshapes in the style that is traditionally called Anglo-Saxon.Newcomers from the Anglo-Saxon regions brought their ownpottery and other objects in the 5th century, but their potteryresembled local pottery.The socio-cultural network also appears from burial ritual.The isolated burials and single bones from before the 4th centuryclearly differ from the cemeteries with inhumations andcremations that appear in the 5th century. However, alreadyin the 3rd century, there are indications of changing traditions.Small cemeteries from that period are found near housesin several settlements in the northern Netherlands and northwesternGermany. In the course of the Migration Period, thesedevelop into mixed cemeteries that belong to settlements.It can be concluded that the material culture and burial customsof the northern Netherlands in the 5th century would nothave been very different if habitation had been continuous