Fakes of Vermaning's Nermanandhal Barge

Probably Drent Tjerk Vermaning is still the most famous archaeologist of the Netherlands, although he died more than thirty years ago. So well known that many people will have frowned upon the previous sentence and thought that the right word would have been "notorious". Vermaning, who earned his money as a knife sharpener, was sentenced in 1977 for fraud: some of his prehistoric finds were false. A year later, the judge dismissed on appeal because it had not been proven that he was himself the forger. Whoever was, is unknown until today.

In the fascinating exhibition "The Vermaning Case", the Drents Museum in Assen returns to the case. Some of the artifacts document the life of the controversial amateur archaeologist: his motorcycle, his letters, his photographs and, of course, some Middle Palaeolithic artifacts he found around 1965. These would have been made by the Neanderthal people, between 130,000 and 30,000 years ago.

Staff finds were a sensation. For a long time, prehistorians had thought that there had never been any Neanderthals in the north of the Netherlands. When in 1939 a first ax was found at Frisian Wijnjeterp, it was rejected as an outlier. Nevertheless, in the fifties, the image had begun to lean and Vermaning's discoveries still turned in the 1960s. It earned him the cultural award of the province of Drenthe in 1966 and a grant to convert his houseboat in a museum boat, where he personally guided the visitors and excited them. Later, a grant followed that would prevent him from migrating to Denmark.

High opinion

That was not enough. "They did not give me an honorary doctorate," they say in the exhibition, "because I put them all in their shirts." Here, a man seems to have a high opinion of himself, which yet needs to be recognized.

He got it from the media, who believed it to be the word when he claimed that the doubts expressed by archaeologists from the University of Groningen came from jealousy. The science established against the solitary who knew better; Vermanize as Galilei. It culminated in the aforementioned trial.

In addition to an image of the era and a glimpse of the case, the Assen exhibition also gives a glimpse of what it's really like # 39; archeology. Compilers use counterfeits to concisely explain how scientists can determine why objects are not real. For example, someone who works with stones with a modern grinding instrument leaves behind recognizable traces. Typology can play a role: Neolithic spearheads discovered by Vermaning in Ravenswoude were enlarged versions of arrowheads. We can also look at the degree of weathering: Permanent discoveries have not shown the natural polishing of sand that has objects that have been in the ground for millennia. A Neanderthal skull roof of Vermaning can be dated with the Carbon 14 method at the end of the 17th century

Although this evidence, especially in combination, is undisputed, the relationship between official science and amateur archaeologists of Drentse is the result of this case. -Mariously disturbed. However, the damage has not been permanent: the compilers point out that the University of Groningen, the Drents Museum and the amateur archaeologists collaborate on a Neanderthal site in Peest. The counterfeits presented by Vermaning are therefore not at all necessary to give the Northern Netherlands a past that dates back to the Middle Paleolithic.