Funnel Cup period

From around 4900 to 2750 B.C., the people of the Funnel Beaker Culture lived in northwestern Europe. They lived mainly in the northern parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Poland. These people were farmers. They grew grain on small fields and raised cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats.

The name "Funnel Beaker Culture" comes from the pottery they made: pots with funnel-shaped necks. The clay was smoothed out and decorated with lines and patterns. In addition to ordinary pots, they also made bottles, bowls, and dishes.

The most famous are the hunebeds, large tombs made of massive stones. There are now more than fifty in the Netherlands, mainly in Drenthe, and one in Groningen. There were once two hunebeds in Overijssel as well: one on the De Eese estate near Steenwijkerwold and one near Mander in Northeast Twente. Both were demolished in the 19th and 20th centuries. Near Mander, archaeologists found remnants of the hunebed and many shards of funnel beakers.

Around 2850 B.C., a lot changed. New groups of people arrived in the area, bringing different customs and different pottery. The inhabitants gradually adopted these new customs. They no longer buried their dead in dolmens, but in individual graves and later in burial mounds. Thus, the Funnel Beaker Culture gradually disappeared, but their dolmens and pottery can still be seen in the landscape and in museums.