GORINCHEM – Archaeologist Pieter Floore and Martin Veen of the Historical Soil Research Foundation are not dissatisfied with the first week of searching for Paffenrode“It could have been worse,” they conclude.
Archaeological research Kazerneplein
"This week it has once again become apparent that things you hear are not always true,” Floore states. “The story was that the demolition rubble from the barracks had been left on the Kazerneplein, which meant that we would have had to dig through a layer of at least one metre thick before we could start. That turned out not to be the case. The rubble from the barracks has indeed been removed.”
According to archaeological finds, only three quarters of Kazerneplein was built on. The research conducted last week also shows that the top layer has remained relatively intact. “It seems a bit pointless to start looking for elements from the sixteenth century, because quite a bit from that period can be found in archives. Yet it does make sense. At that time, only important documents were kept in archives. There is hardly anything to be found about the lives of ordinary citizens. It was simply not important enough to keep. However, our archaeological finds provide an image that cannot be found in the archives,” says Floore.
The Dordrecht resident
August 16, 1997
by Anja Broeken