Willem van Brederode and his wife Hillegonda were the founders of the Castle of Brederode. They were regarded as very wealthy nobility. (more…)

Dame Hillegonda, who came from very wealthy ancestry, survived her husband Willem by several years and lived to be 70 years old. (more…)

Willem, one of the most important knights of that era, fought alongside Willem II and commanded an army under Floris V. (more…)

In 1799 an Anglo-Russian invasion took place in North Holland. In several places there was heavy fighting, including Castricum. The skeleton whose face is reconstructed here was found in the dunes around the Huis van Hilde, the exhibition centre. (more…)

The skeleton of Cees, the Stone Age man, has been excavated in 1990, in the province North-Holland, the Netherlands. (more…)

In 2010 archaeologists excavated a small massgrave containing 9 individuals, among them one woman, 4 men, one young child and three teenagers. The woman reached the age of 26-35 years and was about 1.68 m tall. Her skeleton indicated that she was used to manual labour.The way she was buried and the location suggests that she died during the fights with the Spanish in the siege of Alkmaar. Women played an active part during the siege, they helped with the organisation, the transport and nursing of the wounded. They also helped defending the city walls by e.g. pouring hot pee over the enemy.

The grave of this 9-year old boy was situated alongside a ring ditch. This ditch probably belonged to a burial mound. He was in a supine position with his knees flexed and his head at the same high level. Much later there were also two cows interred alongside this ditch. The meaning of this all, because there were  more pits and strange burials on this terrain, remains an enigma.  Most people living in that period were farmers. He is also reconstructed as a modern boy.

This girl, a teenager really (16-17 years old), lived around 900 BCE. She was interred with a older boy in a filled ditch. In a first version she wore simple clothes, but to show the wealth of the Bronze Age she was later dressed more lavishly and richly. (more…)

The skeleton of this woman was excavated near Castricum – Oosterbuurt, North Holland. (more…)