-- 9 Dikes and other hydraulic engineering works from the Late Iron Age and Roman period on the coastal area between Dunkirk and the Danish Bight Michel A. L ASCARIS, Cultural Heritage Agency, the Netherlands Adriaan M.l . DE KRAKER, VU University Amsterdam Abstract This artie le examines the building ofthe oldes t known dikes, dams, sluices and culverts in the southeastern North Sea coastal area. Giving an outline ofthe archaeological excava- tions carried out since the 1950s, the fol lowing key themes are addressed. The building af these dams and dikes goes back to the end af the Late Iran Age. which also applies to the oldest sluices and culverts. In the narthem Wadden area. coastal Flanders, and Zealand, dams and especially dikes were dominant whereas in the Rhine-Meuse area sluices and culverts were most prevalent. The top levels ofdikes and dams barely reached ane meter in height, while their width could vary mucn mare. Sluices and culverts were wooden constructions often made ofhollowed tree trunks. The distribution ofthe earliest hydraulic engineering works seems velY uneven and largeareas on the map are still blank. This is likely to be caused by differences in the number of archaeological excavations, the recognisability af these features and the archaeolagical methods employed at any particular time. Finally, a striking resemblance betweentheoldest dike and the medieval dikes at Kampereiland suggests a land use which was not exclusively devoted to pasture. J. Introduetion At the time ofthe second congress on the evolution ofthe coastal area ofthe Low Coun- tries, held at Ghent in 1979, hardly anything was knownabout the earliest hydraulic en- gineering works which already had been dated to the Late Iron Age and Roman periods. Some excavations had a1ready taken place in Schleswig Holstein and Lower Saxony since the mid-1950s, but archaeologists at that time were veryreluctant to interpret these remains as primitive dikes and dams. It took som e decades and severa1 other excavations in the coastal area before we began to leam about the Roman occupation and that some vague remnants from this period could be interpreted asdikesanddams. Since the 1990s much new evidence all along the North Sea coast has beenunearthed, ranging from settlement pattems to farming systems, and from rec1aiming the fringe of peat areas to what must be considercd to be the first hydraulic engineering works in the area. This artic1e gives an overview of the most important discoverics by archaeol ogi sts in the coastal area of Lnllds(d/ !I:S .' 1' s('(1.I,(" I';"'<? TI", /:i.iIVr} ' rif JlI(' toast.i! <'1I 1'irolllll l.'ll l ilJ ,/Ic :\"' It/: S'- eI al" eI n .'l'olisid"'C r! , cd. by Er ik T llt)EN, Cum J. 13(lI({;f' R, Ad ri.um M.J. IJE K lt AKEl'., T im, S')E" '. Drie, Tv s, Lies V EI<V /I U ' &- Hcnk J.T. W EEl u s,TlI rn!wlIt.201 J (COR iY 1'ld,/i(,l/iOIl Series , 1:"). 1'1'.177-1 ')8. BREPO LS @l PUBLISHER. S DOl :