2000 years of history in Haarlemmermeerpolder

Hoofddorp, March 21, 2024 - Haarlemmermeer is older than people think. Where the polder is now located was a wadden and salt marsh area 9000 years ago. From 3000 BC. the influence of the sea diminished and a coastal belt with beach walls emerged. The 'Schedule of Hoofddorp' was the first to silt up. Peat growth took place behind the coastal belt, covering most of the present-day Haarlemmermeerpolder with about four meters of peat. We know that people, Neanderthals or predecessors of Homo Sapiens, were already living here at that time from the discovery of a flint ax on the former island of Abbenes. Finds from Roman times, the Middle Ages and the 10-12th century have also been made in Haarlemmermeer. The exhibition “2000 years of history in Haarlemmermeerpolder” can be visited in the Historical Museum Haarlemmermeer in Hoofddorp.

Image of the island of Beinsdorp, map of the Rijnland Water Board from 1625 made by Steven Pieterszoon van Brouckhuijzen

Source: Historical Museum Haarlemmermeer

Finds through the ages

The Roman army was destroyed around 40 AD. active in the peat area of the Rhine estuary. At the end of the first century, historian Tacitus described, among other things, the Frisians as inhabitants of our coastal regions. The fact that there were contacts between Frisians and Romans is evident from the largest find of Roman coins in the Netherlands. In 1920, farmer De Krijger found 12.389 coins of change from the fourth century near Abbenes. Years later, farmer Van Wieringen found shards and a coin from Roman times while plowing his land. This piece of land, lot N16 behind a farm from 1870, then called 'Flink Land' and now 'Volharding Loont', is located at IJweg 1301. The lot is located on the west side of the IJweg, northeast of Nieuw-Vennep, where it used to be land of Beinsdorp.
Elsewhere in Haarlemmermeer, some pots from the Carolingian period, ca. 750-900, have been found, when the area was mainly used for grazing sheep, fishing, hunting and collecting wood and reeds. Several pots and shards from the subsequent period, the 10th-12th centuries, were found shortly after the drainage of the Haarlemmermeer.

• Photo of a shard of stoneware jug from Cologne or Frecaen from ca. 1530-1575.

Photo of two bottles in a photo: on the left the green glass wine bottle, 1875-1925 and on the right the stoneware drinking jug from Siegberg from Germany from 1300-1325. Both found on the former land of Beinsdorp

Historical Museum Haarlemmermeer

The Historical Museum Haarlemmermeer is open in March on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 13.00:17.00 PM to 1:13.00 PM and from April 17.00 from Wednesday to Sunday from XNUMX:XNUMX PM to XNUMX:XNUMX PM.
The museum can be found at Bosweg 17 next to the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Hoofddorp. For more information www.haarlemmermeermuseum.nl.

Visit this exhibition