The material world of late 16th- and 17th-century Amsterdam, encapsulated in a waste-made landscape

Abstract

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch city of Amsterdam underwent four large-scale extensions. These were massive land-reclamation projects, raising and improving the City’s location in a marshy peatland that was subject to soil compaction. Over 65 years of archaeological research has created a rich dataset, opening a window on the methods, means, and processes which created Amsterdam’s waste-made landscape. In addition, pottery assemblages encapsulated in the land-reclamation dumps provide tightly-dated reference groups for the study of late 16th- and 17th-century ceramics with a global perspective.